Psychosocial Struggle In Adulthood

It is pretty easy and common of us to assume that most of our identity formation and developmental issues take place when we are younger: from infancy to adulthood. We assume all too often that our elders have their lives and identities all figured out and that they are comfortable with who they are and what they have done. This is simply not true as elders have always faced significant developmental issues in their old age. This issue has become even more important with the emergence of the “third age,” which Laslett calls the period between modern adulthood and old age. In previous generations people belonging to this age would normally be lumped with advanced adults in retirement, but this group is different. In the third age, adults are …show more content…
The psychosocial struggle in adulthood is generativity vs stagnation. In this stage adults want to feel that they are being productive and creative in the world. The aim here is to build something of a legacy for oneself that will last after we are gone. This often takes the form of procreation as adults have the natural drive to procreate and continue the genetic line through the next generation. Old age is characterized by integrity vs despair. Older adults want to maintain their sense of integrity as their bodies and minds begin to slip away. Older adults also want to look back on their lives and be satisfied with what they accomplished. It would seem that adults in the third age are facing both psychosocial crises at once; they are striving to continue building their own legacy while also maintain their sense of integrity about aging. Schweitzer notes that it is often very difficult for adults in the third age to walk away from their careers after working their entire lives; “After having striven for, and having achieved, a position within working life, and after having defined oneself through this position, many people find it extremely difficult to accept and to appreciate a new and different status that is based exactly on not having this kind of position anymore.” And thus people in their third age are in an interesting predicament; on the one hand they are still striving for …show more content…
First, I believe that it would be helpful to review the types of ministries and programs that the church typically offers to older adults both in old age and the third age. Schweitzer is very critical of the types of programs that the church uses for older members because he claims it is an outdated model that does not take the elderly seriously. He claims that most programs that the church offers fall into one of two categories: disengagement or activation. Disengagement focuses on subjects such as weakness, fragility, dependence and disability and aims at supporting people as they become older. Activation focuses on keeping old people active and on their feet, which is believed to counteract senility. While it would be perfectly acceptable for a church to offer programs like this to the elderly, this cannot be the entirety of what we offer. We can’t possibly fit all of the complex issues that our elders face into two simple categories. Furthermore, adults in the third age are still healthy enough to work and are obviously still active, so these types of programs do very little for them. They don’t need to be helped everyday choirs and they are already as active as they want to be. With this in mind we as the church need to reconsider what the meaning of old age in the postmodern world. With the emergence of the third age we have a group of elders that are still actively seeking personal fulfillment and are fully capable