Modes of Generativity
In essence, our need for generativity and deep caring concerns two primary factors. First, generativity is about extending our presence and influence with our children, the next generation, our heritage, and our community. We become gardeners who tend the flowers, trees, and plants. We want them to live long. We want our garden to represent, in some important and tangible way, how we make an appearance on this earth. We want the garden to reassure us and the world that we have made a difference. We live on through our garden. It is our legacy. It is where we find Personal Worth. And to the extent that other people enjoy our garden or are nourished by what we raise in our garden, there is also Collective Worth.
There is a second primary factor in understanding the path to generativity. Generativity is about caring for that about which one truly cares. We can’t attend equally to every flower in the garden; we must determine which flowers we care about most and then devote deep, caring attention to them. So, in life, we must identify those few things about which we truly care. This is what generativity is all about. This is how we build the bridge between Personal and Collective Worth
We seek to enjoin these two factors in several ways. Each way enables us to build the bridge between Personal and Collective Worth. Specifically, we express and experience generativity through the enactment of four different, though interrelated, deep caring roles.
Parenting a Child or a Project
First, there is the generativity that we experience as parents, even when our children are grown up and we are no longer their primary caretakers. Indeed, caring about our children does not fade away as we grow older; rather, it takes on a new form and is accompanied by the delight that comes with seeing our children succeed in their own lives and finding their own distinctive identity. We even are inclined to feel a greater sense of Personal Worth, coupled with pride in our parenting, as our children have matured and grown into loving, capable adults.
The expression of this first mode of generativity need not be limited to the care for children we have raised from birth. We all know of extraordinary men and women who have taken care of children via foster care, adoption, or by serving as a nurturing uncle or grandparent. One of our dear friends joined with his gay partner to raise a boy from a broken home—a dramatic example of this first type of generativity.
A sense of Personal Worth is often vested in a special project rather than (or in addition to) the Worth associated with successful parenting. We spend a portion of our life creating and maintaining a business, becoming a superb craftsman, learning how to operate a large loom to produce beautiful tapestry, or starting a garage band that has recorded a couple of albums. We wrap at least part of our identity around this project and are pleased that other people also recognize its benefit (Collective Worth).
