Parent/Project and Generativity
In his founding conception of generativity, Erik Erikson focused on the opportunities, challenges and gratifications associated with generativity (vs. stagnation) as it takes center stage during the middle years of our lives. Erickson (1963) did not consider child rearing to be a sign of generativity, and he did not focus on project building among young men and women. In some ways, therefore, we are going against Erikson in proposing child raising as the first generativity role that we often engage during our early adult years.
This is an important aspect of generativity because we experience deep caring when we raise our children. Our sense of Personal Worth is often fully invested in child raising. Deep caring is also felt in our Head and Heart when we initiate projects related to a set of values or goals that are particularly important for us. There is often a “double header” as we find Personal Worth in this project and as we witness increased Collective Worth in the community we are serving.
Generativity One activities make a further contribution to our sense of Worth. These early forms of mature caring have a lingering impact on our lives. Generativity One continues to be experienced when we interact with our grown children, when we become grandparents, and when we serve as guardians in passing the torch for projects and organizations about which we deeply care.
Generativity at this early stage holds another important implication. A decision not to have children can have a lingering impact on our lives. In addition, a Generativity One decision may involve setting aside our dream of initiating a project associated with a life vision. Or it might involve operating inside an existing organization rather than starting one’s own organization. Such decisions not to engage actively or directly in Generativity One are just as important as decisions to engage in more typical Generativity One activities like parenting.
Generativity One and Leaving Something that Lingers
In his book on The Active Life, Parker Palmer (1999) employs a wonderful and quite poignant metaphor about dropping one pebble in a basin of water. At first, the water in the basin is impacted by the dropped pebble. The ripples in the water serve as clear evidence of the pebble’s impact. However, the ripples soon die away, and the water no longer has any memory of the pebble’s impact. As with the water, the collective memory of our impact on the world often seems to be fleeting. We wonder whether we have made any lasting difference in our life. Are we leaving a legacy? Does our world remember anything about our existence and the actions we have taken? If there is no lingering memory then, perhaps, we should ask ourselves: Am I Worth anything?
While Palmer has identified a profound existential issue that each of us must confront, I gently offer a slightly altered metaphor. We chose to replace the basin of water with a lake. The pebble is dropped in the water. The ripples spread across the lake, lapping on a distant shoreline. While the ripples soon die out, small indentations are usually made on the shoreline. This suggests that our own impact on the world might not be immediately observable, but somewhere on a distant shore, the impact can be found. We have made a difference. We are worthwhile.
