Personality Change Over The Adult Years example essay topic

When I was a teenager, I always wondered how it would feel to be an adult, mother, and a wife. I also wondered how it would feel to grow old. I asked my grandfather and grandmother daily how does it feel to grow old and how does it feels to fall in love. My grandparents gave me the same advice as my parents, each person explained to me these five stages puberty, love, marriage, childbirth, and death.

After listening to all the advise I was given, I applied each person advise to my daily living and did some research of my own as I grew older. Each person advice helped me to better understand who I am and why I make the decision that I do. A stage during adolescence such as puberty is largely predictable. Puberty is the first stage of being able to sexually reproduce. This stage, of development, is decided by the human's biological clock. The difference between early and late developers is a manner of three to four years.

"Puberty is the period of rapid growth that marks the end of childhood and the beginning of physical and sexual maturity". Adulthood, mature and fully developed, is determined individual decisions, circumstance and physical and sexual maturity. An adult is a person who can make responsible decision such as going to college or having a job. Adulthood varies greatly between individuals depending upon how fast a person matures. Virtually every pattern of change over adulthood that we can identify or describe has such multiple possible explanations (Bee, H., Bjorklund, B., p 7). Analysis of findings typically involves one of two techniques: comparison of means for groups of different ages or for the same people across age; or calculation of correlations between scores for the same people at different ages to check for individual consistency or for the same people at the same time (Bee, H., Bjorklund, B., p. 30).

Love consists primarily of three components: intimacy, commitment, and passion. Intimacy, a sense of emotional closeness as defined by Robert Stern berg, is the way a person can portray himself or herself to someone he or she is extremely close to. A person can have intimacy without having any commitments; Friendship is usually a relationship without a commitment. Someone can be physically attracted to another with no long-term commitments. There must be commitments for a relationship to lead to marriage. Even when passion declines, for a marriage to last the commitments must stay intact.

I experienced a lot of love relationships during my late teenage years. Marriage is an extremely important factor in happiness. Over 90 percent of Americans eventually get married. Statistics show that married people have the highest level of bliss, followed by the widowed, the divorced or separated, and then those who have never been married.

Men and women have their low points during different times of their marriage. Most women have lows during child bearing, while men have it during late Middle Ages. Married men that make it through the most difficult period of life without getting divorced seem to be much better off than those who did. Divorce or widowed men have a shorter live span than those who are marriage recent studies show. Divorce and remarriage does not greatly alter the basic timing of many family lifecycle events, but it does markedly increase the complexity of family roles to be filled (Bee, H., Bjorklund, B., p. 192). In understanding the impact of gender roles and family roles on adult lives, it may also be helpful to examine the degree of mismatch between a person's personal qualities and the demands of the roles that she or he must fill (Bee, H., Bjorklund, B., p 192).

Where the match is poor, the adult may experience higher level of stress and lower p 192). Where the match is poor, the adult may experience higher level of stress and lower levels of physical and mental health (Bee, H., Bjorklund, B., p 192). Many things are necessary to have a healthy marriage such as the ability to solve conflicts, empathy, ability to communicate, an absence of sexist attitudes, openness, competence, strong affect i onal bonds, quality and quantity of shared times, and financial security. People find they have different needs interest and compatibility's. This is why many people marry some one of similar race, religion, education, or background.

Teenage and married couples older that thirty have fewer successful marriages than those who marry in their twenties and thirties. At least half of the marriages endure until one spouse pass away. Even some unhappy and abusive marriage survives because of fear or dependency. When a child is born, the marriage drastically changes. The husband becomes a father and the wife becomes a mother. Young children require a great deal of attention.

The mother and father have much less time to be alone as a couple. They must spend most of their time and energy taking care of the infant instead of going out and having a romantic time. Spending many hours taking care of their child, the mother and father usually receive a great deal of satisfaction. Many parents receive a sense of pride and enjoyment watching their child grows to maturity, but conflicts might arise. Some of the conflicts are mixed emotions about the baby and the husband or wife might have to abandon his or her career. Many women usually bear the burden of housework after the child is born.

The cumbersome task of housework is why the woman's marital satisfaction is likely to decline. After a child leaves home, many parents breathe a sound of relief. The mother and father of the child can finally be alone together after fulfilling their responsibilities. Personality change over the adult years has also been demonstrated, although both the amount and the nature of the change seem clearer in early than in late adulthood (Bell, H., Bjorklund, B., p. 302) "Four-fifths of those over 65 have living children, among 94 percent are grandparents". Relived from the tremendous responsibilities of raising children, grand parenting is often a much more rewarding experience than parenting.

Giving love guidance to children, grandparents ask little in return. Adult who are more afraid of death are also likely to be higher in neuroticism and to have lower opinions of their own competence or worth (Bell, H., Bjorklund, B., p 398). Higher fear is also associated with uncertain positions on religious questions, while those with very high or no religious commitment are typically lower in fear of death (Bell, H., Bjorklund. p. 398) "People who suffer a terminal illness live with the awareness of their impending death. From interviews dying patients, Elisabeth Kugler-Ross proposed that the terminal ill pass through five stages: denial of the terminal ill condition; anger and resentment; bargaining with God for more little; depression stemming from the impending loss of everything and everyone; and finally, peaceful acceptance of one's fate". Those left to mourn after a death are helped by cleared rituals associated with death, which provides roles for the bereaved and for friends and many give a sense of transcendent meaning to the death (Bell, H., Bjorklund, B., p 398).

Bibliography

Bee, H., & Bjorklund, B. (2000) The journey of adulthood. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.