Three Stages Of Adulthood

Childhood is one of the first biological life cycles we encounter. The experience that we go through shape what we will become. Here in America, as we began to industrialize, we began to have a different view of what childhood should be than in other parts of the world. In Taiwan and in Indonesia athletic shoes are made by children who work in factories instead of going to school. About 215 million of the world’s children work typical long hours for low wages. People in America might find this disturbing because we think of childhood as the first 12 years of life a carefree time of learning and play. But according to historian Philippe Aries (1965) explains, the whole idea of childhood is fairly new. During the middle ages, children of 4 and

Adulthood is not easily defined when it starts and finishes. If this cycle was based on biology it would be easy to define. Once again social pressures define this stage as well. Americans tend to look at it in three stages; Early adulthood, Middle adulthood, and old age. In early adulthood, we learn to manage the day to day affairs for ourselves, often juggling conflicting priorities such as, job, partner, children, and parents. During this stage, we learn to start putting everything we have learned together and manage ourselves. Early adulthood tends to end around forty years of age and Middle adulthood begins roughly from forty to sixty years of

This stage starts somewhere around the mid Sixties. With the advancement in health care in the United States people are living longer. It is one of the fastest growing segment of the population by 2050, the number of seniors will double to 83 million, half the population will be over 40 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). Because America is aging at a very fast rate, we can only imagine some of the consequences of this. With such a large portion on the verge of retirement, leaving a gap in employment as well as increased health care cost. As we move into the next century the young and the old will be forced to interact more and more than they ever