Blog 5

The picture I posted below caught my attention for the discussion of Family Development Theory over the life course. The image of multiple generations together (parent, child, and their parents) is a powerful image for me which links back to stages of family transition.

One of the elements I most appreciated about the theory (and which resounded to me personally) was that two stages can be occurring at once for a family. Acknowledging that a young couple and launching of a new family with young children can be occurring at the same time as a family is dealing with the aging of older members, demonstrates how relevant and realistic this theory is to modern society. Especially with an increase of diverse families, altering timelines of family development, the compounding of these life stages and transition times is realistic, and even likely.

In my family, for instance, this has certainly been the case- compounding stages and transitions, which do not always fit neatly in the theory but certainly exemplify many critical changes my family undertook as a unit. The second picture I included is one that shows my sister's high school graduation, which also marked the start of her college career. My parents were simultaneously tasked with supporting my sisters and I as we progressed through late adolescence into young adulthood, while also taking care of my grand-aunt (depicted, who I called my second grandmother) as her health began to decline. My mom's mom, my maternal grandmother, passed away a couple short months before this picture was taken. In addition to being in a state of transition because of this loss, our family was also in the middle of other key transitions and it was certainly a period of mixed emotions- pride and happiness (for my sister's accomplishments) but also sadness.

Another time when these stages were compounded for family was about a year and a half ago. My nephew had just turned one year old. Weeks later, my grandmother (depicted in the second photo), passed away. While her health had been in decline for some time, and elder care had become an increasing priority for our family, she had the opportunity to become a great-grandmother and lived with my sister, her husband, and shared in the first year of my nephew's life. Losing her in December was difficult because it substantially altered our lives in the middle of what was otherwise a period of stability and joy of having Nicholas in the family as a nephew, grandchild, and great-grandchild.

Analyzing some of my personal experiences through this lens is emotional because of how real those stages and transitions have been to me as mile markers in my life.