Marriage and Family History, Essay Example

In Carter and McGoldrick’s book, they identified the six family life cycle stages that each family will eventually progress through. The stage that my family is experiencing is stage five in which, they are launching children and moving on. While I am in the first stage being an adult trying to separate without cutting them off. This stage is particularly hard for my family. My family has always been a tight-knit deeply religious family that comes from a long line of money. The economic situation that I was born into was a part of my vertical stressor. Although, we came from money, we were deeply religious, and these beliefs profoundly impacted the way in which we (children) interacted with others. The socio-cultural context was my family’s connection to the community through our religious, ethnic, and social groups that my parents belonged to. As a child, I did not understand, why I could not play with certain kids in my neighborhoods, or at the park.

However, when the economy took a downturn, we found ourselves in the predicament we did not imagine. The horizontal stressor of the economic recession, and my father becoming sick drained our funds. For the first time, we were faced with money problems, and as a high school student, I was not sure how I would be able to pay for college, or how to help pay the bills. I became severely depressed, withdrawn from school and the community, and felt my dreams of going to college were in jeopardy. While I was trying to go through my first stage of the life cycle, I was derailed by my parents’ not wanting me to leave. My family was experiencing financial and health difficulties that made them dependent on us. The stresses of my family severely interfered with my transition to adulthood. The problems of my radical change in my family life, affected my ability to form stable relationships, and concentrate on school. When I realize the stressors in my life I was able to reevaluate how I would let them continue to impact me in the future. As an adult, I was able to seek the help I needed by shedding the beliefs of my family I questioned as a youth, and I begin not to worry myself about my parents. While they are doing better now, we all evolved, as we reflected on the religious practices that helped to deal with these stressors. These experiences can help further my career in building a better repertoire with individuals, and understanding others that have experienced hardships, and radical changes in their lives.