List of Questions
The following are seven open questions that I used in exploring the life of the person I chose to interview:
1. What activities do you spend your time on?
2. What are your roles in life at present?
3. What gives you a sense of fulfillment or happiness? Have these changed from when you were younger?
4. What problems or challenges are you encountering right now?
5. What are the things that are important to you now? Have these changed compared to the past?
6. What are your goals in life and why?
7. What relationships do you value?
Summary of the Interview
The person I interviewed was female, a parent of two, employed and 33 years old. She consented to the interview after I explained what it was about, what I am using the information for, and after I reassured confidentiality regarding her identity. The interview was done in her home. A summary of her answers to each question are as follows:
1. What activities do you spend your time on?
The interviewee responded that most of her time revolves around work and family. In the morning, she prepares breakfast for her children and brings them to school. Then she goes to work in the hospital as a medical transcriptionist. She picks up her kids after work, brings them home, cooks dinner, makes sure her children’s homework are done. Then they watch television together or the children play for a while and then she makes them go to bed. Each day is the same routine except on Saturdays when she chooses to work overtime and her kids are left with a babysitter. Otherwise, she stays at home and does housework, plays with the kids at the nearby park or goes to the grocery store to purchase the next week’s supplies. Sundays are spent for church services in the morning and other church activities in the afternoon which may include visiting sick members or counseling.
2. What do you think are your roles in life at present?
The interviewee stated, “I consider myself a mother, a Christian and an employee but I also am a daughter, a sister, a friend and a counselor.”
3. What gives you a sense of fulfillment or happiness at present? Have these changed since you were younger?
As she is also a counselor to teenagers and young adults in her church, her sense of fulfillment comes from being able to help others cope with personal crisis through a strong faith in God. She further volunteers to visit fellow church members who are sick to give them and their family moral or spiritual support at a time of great need. What gives her self-fulfillment is different now that she is older. Earlier in life, accomplishments in school, hobbies, leisure, friends, independence and having a job were the primary sources of her happiness and fulfillment.
4. What problems or challenges are you encountering right now?
A major challenge the interviewee is having now is how to maintain financial security for herself and her family. The hospital where she is employed is thinking of outsourcing medical transcription and there is the likelihood that she will lose her job. She is currently looking for possible alternative employment just in case. Also, she is a single parent and she often feels the physical and emotional strain of what she states as “having to do all the parenting and breadwinning all by myself” as her former husband is not supportive. But she is very optimistic that her responsibilities will diminish as her children, who are five and seven years old, grow older and become more independent. She also has very loving and supportive parents and siblings whom she can always count on in times of extreme difficulty.
5. What are the things that are important to you now? Have these changed compared to the past?
The interviewee said that her family and her faith are the most important things to her now. She expressed that besides her family’s support, her faith had also helped her cope with the divorce and being a single parent. It was different in the past when it was mainly her own self that was important to her - her needs, her goals and her happiness. At present, most of the things she does are primarily for her children and for her religion. She states that since becoming a mother, she has followed her parents’ example by always doing what she thinks is best for the children even if it means putting her own needs last. This is a major change from the past when she was still a single young adult wherein she only had her own needs to satisfy.
6. What are your goals in life and why?
She wants her children to go through grade school, high school and college and later establish their own careers, follow their dreams and build their own families. She considers her children’s success as her own. She also wants to go back to school and study nursing because it is a more stable career and one that she can imagine herself having until retirement. Nursing can also help her care for her children better.
7. What relationships do you value? Why?
She values her relationship with God, her children, her family, her friends and church mates, and her superiors and coworkers. According to her, these relationships define who she is. It is within these relationships that she has found “support, happiness, fulfillment, a sense of purpose and personal growth” and maintaining these relationships allows her to reciprocate the love and support that others have shown her.
Application of Erik Erikson’s Theory
The questions asked were meant to explore what the interviewee is thinking, feeling, and doing in order to determine what stage in life she is currently in. Based on her responses to the seven questions, the interviewee is in the stage of adulthood. According to Erik Erikson, the conflict that has to be resolved in this stage is generativity versus stagnation. Generativity means a commitment to establish the next generation and provide them guidance (Slater, 2003). This is exemplified in the interviewee’s completely embracing the nurturing role of a parent that has become one of her life goals. Despite having undergone the personal crisis of divorce, this has not affected her commitment to role performance although being a single parent has become more difficult compared to when she still had her spouse.
Generativity is also reflected in the interviewee’s role as a counselor to the younger members of her church and her mentoring role at work. She provides counseling on Sunday afternoons to those who approach her. Counseling is another form of guiding the next generation since it involves listening to their concerns, empathizing with and helping them understand their situation, assisting them as they explore their options, and supporting their decisions. It is a way of helping make the next generation better and stronger persons. At work, one of the interviewee’s tasks is to assist new medical transcriptionists in adjusting to the job by mentoring them until they reach an acceptable level of performance. This, too, is generativity because it involves enhancing the capacity of younger, less experienced transcriptionists.
As a concept, generativity includes being productive and being creative (Slater, 2003). By being employed, the interviewee is actively participating in the economy and is therefore productive. Further, in the past five years that she worked as a transcriptionist, her tasks and responsibilities have increased along with her experience so that she is currently the team leader. With the anticipated changes in the workplace which can leave her unemployed, she aims to remain productive by seeking another job. Her creativity is seen in her plans to expand her knowledge and skills by enrolling in a nursing program so that she can better compete in the job market.
The stage of adulthood is further characterized by the virtue of caring (Slater, 2003). This means taking actions based on a concern for the welfare of others. The interviewee’s life illustrates this virtue. Her putting her needs last and her children and family’s needs first is a concrete example. This self sacrifice is in stark contrast to when she was still single wherein her primary focus was her own needs and aspirations. Caring has also extended beyond family to members of her church - to teenagers, young adults and the sick.
Individual’s Fit into her Life Stage
The facts of the interviewee’s life are consistent with the life stage of adulthood. There is clear resolution of the conflict of generativity versus stagnation as the interviewee has willingly and consistently fulfilled her generative roles. She has a positive impact on her children and others of the next generation within the social settings she is involved in. She has transcended self-absorption and developed the virtue of caring where concern is extended beyond self, an act which can aptly be described as self sacrifice. She is and plans to remain productive and copes with employment issues by looking at how she can further develop herself as a professional.
Works Cited
Slater, Christian L. “Generativity Versus Stagnation: An Elaboration of Erikson’s Adult Stage of Human Development.” Journal of Adult Development 10.1 (2003): 53-65. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.
