Sophia's Midlife Crisis

According to a 1978 and 1996 study conducted by Whereas Levinson, most men and women experience substantial inner turmoil during the transition to middle adulthood. Another study showed that individuals in their twenties and thirties anticipated a midlife crisis in their forties and fifties. This poses the question, ‘Is there such a thing as a midlife crisis.’ Midlife crisis is defined as inner turmoil and self-doubt that prompt major restructuring of the personality during the transition to middle adulthood. While crisis and major restructuring in midlife are rare and only affects a minority of adults, in Sophia’s case, it is possible that there is a crisis at this current stage of her life. A 2005 study showed that Americans often anticipate
a midlife crisis because of culturally induced apprehension of aging. Sophia’s midlife crisis is being caused by many factors with the main one being a desire to change careers, but feeling too old to do so. A simple dilemma would not categorize her as having a midlife crisis, however, the fact that she is constantly stressing about her current career and feels ill-experienced in counseling her daughter because of where she personally is in life, allows me to believe that she is in the midst of one. When asked if there were anything that she wishes she had done differently in the past, Sophia responded,
“I wish I would have gone to nursing school. But at the time, it almost seemed impossible to juggle three kids while being in a hard program. If I had gone, maybe I wouldn’t feel so unhappy at my job right now, and maybe I would be able to help my daughter when it comes to making college decisions.”
In a 1995 and 1999 study done by Landman et al., Stewart, and Vandewater, individuals who acknowledged their regret without making life changes were lower in confidence and assertiveness compared to individuals who modified their lives (Berk, 2010, p. 537). Considering that Sophia is a minority and what we know about the limited progress in career advancement for minorities, we can hypothesize that Sophia felt that there was some kind of expectation that she had to live up to when it came to still trying to pursue her goals, despite having kids of an early age. The fact that she wasn’t able to pursue her dreams after having kids can lead us to believe that she thinks she may have failed in this area. In the case of her oldest son, Nick, it is evident that despite his criminal background, Sophia loves him dearly.
In parental imperative theory, traditional gender roles are maintained during parenting years to help ensure the survival of children. Women tend to emphasize nurturance, while men are more goal-oriented. In Sophia’s case, this sheds some light on her willingness to always bail Nick out of jail even when she can barely afford it at times. In addition, we know that children of parents who have undergone a divorce are likely to be in the center of many problems. While Sophia and Nick’s father were never married, we do know that because of the separation, Nick had to adjust to not having two parents in the household. Children in these cases tend to display externalizing problems, such as conduct problems, which Nick executed during his childhood years and currently in his stage of early adulthood. Parents in conflict with one another tend to behave more negatively and less sensitively toward their children. Sophia admitted to not being as attentive to Nick as she could have been before she met Devon. I think we can hypothesize that in the midst of all of this, Sophia partially blames herself for Nick’s behavior as a child and now as an adult. Hence, she feels responsible to bail Nick out of jail each time because she believes that it is her fault. According to element five of the life cycle, launching children and moving on is a part of normative stages in traditional family development. Sophia blames herself for her inability to successfully do this as well as feeling the pressure to make sure she is able to do this with her last two kids; hence, her adamancy to help Keisha find a college, while also ensuring that Anthony strays away from the path of his
stepbrother. Finally, when we compare Sophia’s life to Erikson’s stage of generativity vs. stagnation, we can we can see some problems that she is currently dealing with. At this stage, individuals establish careers, give back through raising children, and become productive at work. Failing these stages can cause one to feel stagnant and unproductive. From what we know from Sophia, she hoped to be a better parent to her children than her parents were to her. However, Sophia is dealing with the stress of not overcoming many of the milestones present in this stage. We can hypothesize that a lot of Sophia’s stress comes from feeling like she wasn’t the successful parent that she made out to be in efforts to do a better job than her parents.