Preface: This was written for my Adult Development and Life Assessment class and submitted July 18, 2010.
Personal Progression
Our childhood and genetic predispositions usually determine how most of us will end up as an adult and the direction each of our lives will take. Most would also agree that we are a product of the culmination of both influences with a victim mentality and a result of the effects of the same. Similarly, Bob Cave, an Eclectic Theorist, takes on the idea that “if a child knows that they are loved and accepted unconditionally by the parents, they will be able to endure almost any difficult circumstance.” (Cave, n.d.) However, I have always embraced the mentality that we are survivors and can consciously change many things in our life, both internally and externally, through personal intention or indirect modeling of behaviors and mindsets that can be learned. My personal progression through life against familial challenges and modeled behaviors in addition to desires and future goals all start with where I came from.
On December 17, 1976, I was born into the world as the child of an unwed single mother who was barely 21 years old with no education past high school and who had no desire for a child. I was a “love child”, as they say, the result of an affair by my father who had already had a wife and eventually 4 daughters by his wife, with his oldest less than 6 months older than me. I am an only child and my mother never married during all these years. I never had a father figure growing up and my biological father never outwardly claimed me or supported us over the years, either. Little to no family direction and even less resources available combined with the personal desire for attention and a sense of self-worth lead me to be creative with ways to occupy my time which resulted in shaping my behavior to the desired end result of accolades and acceptance, as suggested in Burrhus Frederic Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning. (WGBH Educational Foundation, 1998)
Growing up I was very involved in social activities where achievements and the ability to excel individually were easier, accepted and expected to a degree. Aside from academic merit, extra-curricular activities with the school and community became a staple in my childhood. Expertise in baton twirling and rhythmic ribbons along with the parades and competitions they led to were a commonplace activity for me during the elementary school years. I also started with the Daisies, quickly progressing into the Brownies and Girl Scouts as I got into Junior High School. In numerous areas I excelled with awards, trophies and recognition of all kinds. Junior high school started my school choir career as a Soprano Section leader with regular solos and an operatic voice to carry me through 11th grade. In high school, I became certified as a Peer P.A.L.S. counselor and was regularly counseling students in need during my time in high school, with my primary client being a suicidal freshman. When considering how I succeeded academically and in extra-curricular activities, you can safely conclude that this was an active defense mechanism called “compensation” as Freud referred to in his Psychoanalytic theory. (Witt and Mossler, 2010)
The feelings that I experienced growing up whenever I excelled have definitely flowed over into my adulthood and I have made many conscious choices to continue on the path of positive distinction. In junior high I decided I wanted to become a Doctor, more specifically a General Practitioner. Once I reached Biology class in high school I changed over to Entomology. This was not surprising since I always collected bugs, studied animals and nature and loved dissecting bugs throughout childhood. More recently, as the Forensics area has developed through technology advancement has my desire to add Forensics to my Entomology career grown. Not to long ago I realized that my dream of the combination of the two fields is an actual area of study and work, which is when I made the final determination of what I wanted to be “when I grew up”, a Forensic Entomologist. As I fine tuned my career direction over time, I engaged a process of “formal operational thought” as suggested in Piaget’s cognitive development theory. (Witt and Mossler, 2010)
In 1993, when I was a junior in high school and had been 16 for only 3 weeks, I gave birth to my first child. I was not married to her father and saw the path my mother took repeating itself. I made a point to try and stop the cycle, so to speak, so I stayed in school and graduated high school in 1994 with honors and a 4.3 GPA. I was accepted into the University of Redlands with a scholarship into their Medicine program, but chose not to attend due to logistics and I told myself that I could always go back to school, but I could not raise my child again. As researched in Héfer Bembenutty’s Expectancy-Value theory, the competing intentions of a family and academic achievement led to the delay of my academic gratification because the alternatives to my academic goals were more important, which were my children. (Bembenutty, 2007) I had my second child in 1995 and married his father in 1996, but separated in 1998 and was divorced in 1999. In 2002 I married my second husband, had my third child in 2005, became separated in 2006 and legally divorced in 2008. I married my third husband in 2008 and became a step-mother to his child that he had from a previous spouse and had my fourth child in 2009. Now, I have a huge extended family including parents, brothers and sisters-in-law with my husbands’ family. An immediate and extended family such as this is something I have wanted all these years, but is unchartered territory for me, not to mention the acceptable dynamic between siblings that I am unfamiliar with as an only child.
Everyone has personal, professional and academic goals to some measure, whether far-reaching or none, they are all goals. Family balance is an important personal goal for me. The different ages, genders, parental dynamics with different parent sets and the desired cohesiveness of everyone and each individual situation is a lot of work, but very important to create a happy family. Professionally, I would like to be able to work but cannot do so without my back issues resolved. Whether that is a strict regimen of medication and physical therapy or surgery, something tangible has to happen to allow me to re-enter the workforce. I would absolutely love to work within the field I am going to school for, however at this point my prior field would suffice. Completion of my 4 year degree in Social and Criminal Justice is my short term academic goal. I would eventually like a Doctorate and to specialize in Forensic Entomology, or Medicocriminal Entomology, which is the science of using insect evidence to uncover circumstances of interest to the law, often related to a crime. (Merritt, n.d.)
References
Bembenutty, Héfer. (2007). Retrieved from http://www.heferbembenutty.com/index.html
Cave, Bob. (n.d.). The eclectic theory of personality. Retrieved from www.family-university.org/archive/eclectic_personality_theory.html
Merritt, Richard. (n.d.). American Board of Forensic Entomology. Retrieved from http://www.forensicentomologist.org/index.html
WGBH Educational Foundation. (1998). People and discoveries .Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhskin.html
Witt, G.A., & Mossler, R.A. (2010). Adult development and life assessment. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/AUPSY202.10.1
___________________________
2010 Copyright by Shannon Peace