In every single one of our lives we all encounter relationships. Some of these may include a quick one such as opening a door for a stranger as you are either walking into a store, or something as complex as a sexual relationship with some one of your personal preference. These connections are what bound us together as a society and help keep us moving forward. In each stage of our lives we have different bonds or our bonds with someone change over time. For example when we are children we have to rely on our parents for everything.
When we reach middle adulthood which is ages 34-60 years old our parents are more than likely in the elderly state of their lives and may require our help. Over time we may gain or lose friends as well. Hopefully during our middle adulthood phase we have our careers figured out so we can focus on nurturing these relationships. They might be with our own children, parents, siblings, lovers, and so on, but no matter the relationship this period in our lives is the best time to grow them. In the psychosocial way of looking at life, they divide life up into stages and each stage has a psychosocial crisis.
For middle adulthood which lasts from age 34 all the way to 60 years old is generativity versus stagnation. In very basic terms this is a battle of deciding if you wish to pass things down to the next generation versus living a life that has a lack of growth. Newman and Newman (2014) define generativity as encompassing procreativity, productivity, and creativity, and thus the generation of new beings, as well as o new products and new ideas, including a kind of self-generation concerned with further dentity development. They go on to explain that it is formed as a result of experiences of maintaining the world, nurturing and being concerned, and caring. Newman and Newman (2014) also explain stagnation. It defines as a lack of psychological movement or growth. Those unable to cope with managing a household, raising children, or managing their career are likely to feel psychological stagnation at the end of middle adulthood.
They continue to explore it more by adding that stagnation is seen as an absence of investment in the growth of self or others and a rejection of ideas and values that differ from one’s own. We are more likely to want and have great connections with other people if during this stage we are on the side of generativity instead of stagnation. This trickles down to our prime adaptive ego quality and our core pathology. Newman and Newman (2014) explain the correlation between the psychosocial crisis in place here and the prime adaptive ego quality and our core pathology.
Generativity is a moral directive to take care of and to care for and about the development of others. This is fully achieved and expressed in action. It is linked to the prime adaptive ego quality of care. On the opposite side experiences of stagnation are explained as being accompanied by the core pathology of rejectivity. This is a defensive, selfprotective outlook. These people who develop rejectivity blame the target of envy and possibly justifies expressions of vengefulness or rage.
So the concept of generativity to care enough about people to pass down our knowledge to the generation. This is very important as each generation in a society should pass their knowledge and skills down to help the next beings in this society thrive as much as possible. If we are all in stagnation or victims of rejectivity we will not pass anything down and our whole society will eventually become stagnated and will never be able to move forward. So it is very important we all care for other eople and try to create as many loving relationships as possible and pass things down to the next age group so one day they may do the same to another group of beings.
Through the creativity of people especially the ones who are passing down knowledge is important. With new inventions or things of that sort we are able to learn how to do things better with less error and can help out the future of the planet and the beings on it. In Conclusion, during the phase of middle adulthood you have a lot of stuff on your plate. You may have a career and all the duties that come with that.
You should make time to make sure in the battle of generativity versus stagnation you do not allow stagnation to win because not only does that hold you back as a human trying to grow and continuing to form your own identity. But is also holds back society as a whole if we do not pass down our knowledge and our learnings. We can do this by being an example for people to look at. Achieving this in such ways as maintaining and focusing on our loving bonds with other people not only makes us happier and helps us live a better life but it allows us to help the future of our people and our planet as well.
