Life has Stages, as Well as Ages

Life has its stages, as well as its ages. Life’s two major stages are growing up and growing old. Both of these primary, gradual and successive stages have their joys along with their sorrows. As an eighty-two-year-old man once told me, brushing his few white hairs back across his head, lovingly gazing at his resting wife on her deathbed, after sixty years of marriage: “I don’t know which is harder, growing up or growing old.”

That sentence silenced me. I did not have an answer. But then I don’t think he expected an answer, saying it more to himself than to me. I wish I would have said, “Whichever one you are in.” At my old age now, I can confirm that sentiment.

Additional stages have been identified which unfold within these two primary phases of life. The most significant vision proposed thus far has been that of psychologist Erik Erikson. He divided life into eight basic stages, through which we must all pass. Each stage presents us with an either/or developmental alternative. Erikson maintained that we will end up taking one of the two options at each stage, one being healthy, the other unhealthy.

1. Basic Trust vs. Basic Mistrust (infancy, till age 2). Here the infant learns through the direct care of caregivers whether the world is a safe, nurturing and dependable place, or the opposite: unsafe, unloving and undependable. This may well be the most crucial stage of life.

2. Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (early childhood, ages 2-3). Here the central issue for the toddler is the urge and ability to be independent, to experience their world as a separate person. If this does not go well, the toddler will experience shame and doubt, the feelings of worthlessness and incompetence.

3. Initiative vs. Guilt (play age, ages 3-5). While much is going on during the preschool years, the central issue here is whether the child is reinforced or ridiculed for exploring and experimenting with their physical and social world. If initiative is reinforced, freedom sets root; if impulsive expression is punished, guilt’s bondage takes hold.

4. Industry vs. Inferiority (school age, ages 6-12). At issue here is the success or failure of the child in school activities and the development of friendships. Children who succeed gain a sense of accomplishment and competence. Those who do not are bridled with the feelings of inadequacy.

5. Identity vs. Identity Confusion (adolescence, ages 12-18). The central issue here is answering the question, “Who am I?” This includes establishing one’s sex role, connectedness with family and peers, and defining interests. If unsuccessful, the youth feels vaguely lost, without clear purpose or meaning.

6. Intimacy vs. Isolation (young adulthood, ages 19-35). Here the question is, “Who am I to be with?” The young person must determine the kind of intimacy desired, and seek to actually attain and maintain it.

7. Generativity vs. Stagnation (adulthood, ages 36-65). The primary issue in this stage concerns the kind and extent of one’s creativity, of how one will affect the world, of what one will leave behind.

8. Integrity vs. Despair (older adulthood, after 65). The core issue here is whether and how one will maintain one’s standing in the world, one’s sense of ongoing importance and capability. We all want to avoid ending up as the poet warns, “not with a bang, but a whimper.”