Martha Demos

Professor Jarvis
FHS 1500
July 31, 2014
Final Project: My Life

I was born the youngest of five children in Maryland, in the Washington D.C. suburbs.
We lived in a townhouse in a very culturally diverse neighborhood. I had neighbors from Sierra
Leone, Columbia, India, and the Caribbean as well as neighbors who were American black,
Jewish, white, and mixed. We had the end unit that was near a state park, extensive woods with a
creak that provided hours of entertainment. My family taught me to love nature, knowledge, and
the arts. We grew up without TV because my parents wanted us to read rather than watch TV.
We were not well-off but we always had what we needed. My mother supported the family as a
nurse. My father had a PhD in physics but had struggled on and off to find steady employment.
When I was eleven, we moved to Pennsylvania to the Philadelphia area. We lived in a
single family home in a pretty homogenous area with plenty of countryside. I went to middle
school and high school in Pennsylvania and then moved to New York City when I was eighteen
along with my sister. I took classes at a community college and worked at GAP until I decided I
wanted to stay. I transferred to Hunter College, part of the City University of New York system,
and earned a bachelors degree in anthropology and political science. Soon after I graduated, my
father passed away, and I began dating Jayson. I lived in New York another year before doing
some soul searching in India and then deciding to move to Utah to follow Jayson, who is from
Utah and had moved back. I have been living in Utah for about a year and a half, am now
married to Jayson, and have been accepted to the University of Utahs Master of Social Work
program. My lifes journey has been dotted with significant moments.
When I was six years old, my father was laid off from his job, and he subsequently
retired. My mother started working full time as a home health nurse and would work long hours,
often filling out paperwork late into the night. My father, at fifty-nine, became me and my
brothers primary caregiver. My fathers retirement had long-term effects on my life and
impacted my social/emotional development throughout my childhood. My three older sisters
experienced childhood with my mother at home or working part-time. Although my sisters and I
were raised in the same home by the same parents, we experienced non-shared influences
because of the change of circumstances.
It is difficult to categorize my fathers caregiving style according to Baumrinds
classifications. My father was definitely permissive in that there was very little disciple,
guidance, or control (Berger, 2014, p. 217). I felt as a child that there were no rules I needed to
follow. On the other hand, I do not feel that we were coddled or indulged and my father had an
explosive temper that would erupt from time to time. I believe that is why instead of lacking self-
control and being dependent on my parents as Baumrind predicted, I tend to be conscientious,
blame myself, and internalize as Baumrind predicted a child raised by authoritarian parents
would do (Berger, 2014, p. 217). Despite Baumrinds views, I believe my fathers parenting
style allowed me to be adventurous and independent. He encouraged my adventurous side by not
only allowing my brother and I to do as we pleased but also taking us on long walks in the
woods, canoeing, and hiking.
As I progressed further into middle childhood, my father was in his sixties and looked his
age or older. He also had begun to lose his hearing, and in addition, he was quite eccentric in
some of his habits. Social comparison, a middle childhood social development, had begun to
take effect as I began to occasionally experience prejudice from other children and self-
consciousness on my own part, knowing my older father, who loved me and cared for me, was
different than other peoples fathers who were young and generally in the workforce. Social
comparison seemed non-existent in early childhood and quickly made differences obvious in
middle childhood (Berger, 2014, p. 286). I experienced ageism, prejudice against someone
because of their age, vicariously through my father. With racism or sexism, parents teach their
minority or female children to recognize and counter bias, . . .However, when people believe an
ageist idea, few people teach them otherwise (Berger, 2014, p. 500). To this day, I am sensitive
to ageist remarks.
When I was eight, the death of our family dog, Molly, was a huge life event. I remember
mourning over the death of my dog for years. I believe the impact of my dogs death
demonstrates my increased cognitive development. When I was barely five years old, my
grandmother passed away. I do not remember mourning at all. According to Piaget, when I was
barely five I had reached the stage of preoperational intelligence. I could use language and
symbols and had great imagination. I used static reasoning, thinking that the world does not
change (Berger, 2014, p. 183). Looking at my grandmothers body at her funeral as a five year
old, I did not understand that my life had been altered. I thought imaginatively of her in heaven
but did not understand that great loss had occurred. As an eight year old, I used what Piaget
called concrete operational thought. I could more fully understand my lived experiences. I could
understand that my dog was gone permanently, even though my abstract understanding of death
was limited. My level of cognitive development made it possible for me to understand enough to
mourn.
When I was nine years old, I was given an aptitude test by the school district and was
labeled gifted and talented. I switched schools in order to be enrolled in a gifted and talented
program for fourth and fifth grade which effected my cognitive development because the
program challenged my brain, which was rapidly becoming more interconnected day by day
(Berger, 2014, p. 255). More importantly, the program effected my social/emotional
development. I was able to keep up for the most part academically but the shift in environment
and peers made me lose confidence in my abilities as I compared myself to others who seemed
more able. It is typical during middle childhood for childrens self-esteem to drop from the
overconfidence of early childhood (Berger, 2014, p. 286). I suffered because although I was
tested for general intelligence, most likely the types intelligence Howard Gardner would call
linguistic and logical-mathematical, I had not been tested on my organizational skills, time-
management skills, and interpersonal skills, all of which were somewhat lacking (Berger, 2014,
p. 270). In fourth and fifth grade, I experienced anxiety from schoolwork and friends at school
for the first time. I moved from Maryland to Pennsylvania between fifth and sixth grade and was
saved from attending a magnet middle school, another type of gifted and talented program.
Instead, I experienced mainstreaming, being put in the same classes as students of all different
ability levels. My confidence and self-esteem rose as my academic performance shined. The
gifted and talented program had started me on a path of focusing on academics, a path I
followed throughout my schooling.
When I was sixteen, I began seeing a psychiatrist and taking anti-depressant medication.
Clinical depression affects twenty percent of teenage girls (Berger, 2014, p. 377). Soon after, I
was hospitalized because I had overdosed on heart medication in what may have appeared to be a
parasuicide, or failed suicide attempt, but was actually an attempt to temporarily escape that was
not thought all the way through (Berger, 2014, p. 378). I view my depression and actions as a
reflection of my genes, my incomplete cognitive development, and the social pressures
experienced by teenagers. The limbic system develops before the prefrontal cortex has fully
matured, making teenagers easily carried away by emotion and excitement without the use of
caution or planning (Berger, 2014, p. 331). As a teenager, I was not abnormal in that I
experienced heightened emotions that led me to foolish actions, without a fully developed
prefrontal cortex to reflect and analyze the situation. I believe what had made me upset enough
to overdose on heart medication was that a boy I liked no longer liked me. My desire for love,
the pain of rejection and the American cultural pressure to have a boyfriend had made me feel
more emotion than I could regulate. I struggled with emotional regulation into my early
adulthood. Although it still affects me, I now have the benefit of a developed pre-frontal cortex
and some life experience to help keep myself in check.
When I was twenty-one, I traveled to Ghana on my own. I had traveled abroad earlier that
year to Argentina and Mexico and have traveled since, but my trip to Ghana truly helped me
experience the freedom and empowerment of emerging adulthood, it was an important step in
my social/emotional development. Research finds that for many people emerging adulthood is a
time of increased happiness and self-esteem especially for those living away from their parents
(Berger, 2014, p. 413). I was living in New York City far from home; however, traveling abroad
seemed the ultimate mark of independence and adventure.
Two important life events occurred this year. I got married, and I got accepted to the
University of Utahs Master of Social Work Program. I am now twenty-six and both life events
have taken me out of the stage of emerging adulthood into true adulthood; both events represent
big steps in my social/emotional development. I feel I have finally come closer to achieving
Eriksons fifth stage of development, identity versus role confusion, which is now seen as a
lifelong process rather than a stage of adolescence (Berger, 2014, p. 464). I had struggled to find
my vocational identity, choosing moratorium, or a postponement in identity achievement, by
attending college, working retail, traveling, and serving in the Americorps VISTA program
(Berger, 2014, p. 357). I have finally committed to a vocational path by choosing to get a
masters in a specific field, and have worked through some of the anxieties associated with
identity achievement. My decision to get married after waiting for the right time and person is an
important step and fulfills Eriksons sixth stage of development, intimacy versus isolation
(Berger, 2014, p. 464). I am happy with where my life has taken me and look forward to many
interesting years ahead.
















References
Berger, K. S. (2014). Invitation to the life span (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.