Death of Child or End of Project
Before moving on to Generativity Two, we must briefly bring up the very difficult issue of loss. In most societies, it is assumed that the parent dies before the child dies. But what happens when the child dies first? The death is profound even when our child is a mature adult and we have been blessed with many years watching him or her mature. We grieve the lost years that were anticipated as the child would grow older and perhaps have children of their own. A colleague of ours studied the processes of grieving for parents who lived through the death of their child when she was eight-year-old. The grieving process is long-lasting. As one of the men who our colleague interviewed put it: “We bury our spouses in the ground but bury our children in our heart.”
In many instances, of course, the grieving parent can turn to her other children who may remain in her life. Even with the continuing presence of other children, however, there is the abrupt end of one domain in the role of Generativity One for this parent. As we can all observe in the lives of grieving parents we know, and in the poignant portrayal of grieving parents and grieving siblings in movies such as Ordinary People and Terms of Endearment, the loss is always present and impacts the lives of all family members and others closely associated with the family.
Even though the death of a child is of much greater significance than the death of a project, the experience of loss in either case can be shattering to a person’s sense of self and Personal Worth in the world. In the case of either the death of a child or the ending of a project, the Generativity One process is disrupted. One of the actors has had to leave the stage and those playing the roles of Generativity Two, Three and Four will forever miss this Generativity One actor.
All the other roles are impacted by this loss, and no one on stage will ever quite be the same. This, we believe, is one of the primary reasons for devoting time and attention to Generativity One. Without this first role, the other three roles lose some of their meaning and dynamics. Consequently, we will be referring back to Generativity One throughout our analysis of the other three roles.
Conclusions
Pope Francis spoke about caring for children so that they might find hope in their lives. I would suggest that we care for children and initiate an important project so that we might find hope in our own life. We hope for a sense of accomplishment in raising a child or managing a project. Underlying this commitment to Generativity One is an abiding hope that our life and work will be Worthwhile.
Many people put all of their eggs in the Generativity One basket. Their children or project is “everything” to them. Their sense of Personal Worth depends on their success in enacting Generativity One. Hope is focused (and restricted) when aspiring to make a difference in the world, leaving a legacy. Fortunately, there are other ways in which we can be generative. Deep caring can be expressed and engaged in multiple ways, as we will consider in the next three essays. We seem to have been “graced” with the opportunity to find generativity-based Worth by traveling down several different pathways. Furthermore, the additional pathways we will be considering are more expansive than Generativity One. They hold out hope for both Personal Worth and Collective Worth.
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