Module 6 reflection

I think the biggest issue that I personally worry about in middle age is what happened to my father, he has an education but kept losing his job to a younger person with less experience. This cost the company that he was working for less money to employ someone with less experience than to keep my father on the pay roll. I have put everything in to my basket taking a huge risk completing my degree at Fordham. Currently right now I am part of the working poor, if I did not live with my parents I would not be able to afford housing or food for my son and I. This issue concerns me the most, while I do not plan on becoming rich with my new career I hope to at least be able to save some money and not live pay check to pay check.

These concerns are intensified due to the fact that I am in the sandwich generation and will continue to care for my parents as the continue to get older, therefore needing more help from me to get to doctors appointments.  Already I am there for them as they need that driver home from the surgery center or to go to a doctor's appointment to be the listening ears and advocate.

My last concern is my son, with all his overwhelming health needs it is essential that there is a trust established in case something were to happen to me.  While I would like to think I have an invincible single parenting cloak that is not the case.  

All I know to do is to keep on trekking through the paces of my current life knowing that in two years I will be done and I will hopefully obtain that dream job with better pay. 

Module 5D

The living wage issue for emerging adults is a problem that affects many individuals in this life stage.  For many they are having to deal with students loans, the economic recession and managing the numerous stresses of being an emerging adult.  By achieving interdependencies or minor achievements of independence can be troubling for an emerging adult.  Earning a low income while trying to pay for students loans and living on your own an emerging adult in this life stage cannot often achieve the transitional experience of having a new job, living on their own and financial independence.  The emerging adult does not have to give up all these transitional experiences; they could share a room with another emerging adult to assist them with living on their own.  When a person is in this life stage often times they have to rely on other resources than what they make by sharing their life stage with other peers around them. 

Reference:

Settersten, R. (2007). Passages to adulthood: Linking demographic change and human development. European Journal of Population, 23, pp. 251-272.

Module 5B-Aging Out by Midnight

After viewing the videos I thought back to the time when I was graduating High School and my parents and I went to visit varies colleges.  This was a time of excitement and joy of the upcoming future.  When thinking back to the videos these youth did not have the overwhelming support that I had during this time, the young adults in these videos did not have any of the support that I had during this time.  I felt for these youth in the videos they had hardly any support, with the few exceptions here and there.  I honestly felt for these youth and the lack of support that they got.  As far as the responsibility of the state I feel torn because yes they are “responsible” for these youth they often overwhelmed with all that they have to do for the youth.  I do think that there should be some sort of program to assist the youth when they are approaching the aging out stage.  The state is aware of the youth’s age and they know when it is approaching, so it is not like this is a new issue for them.  When these teens are not taught the proper life skills that they need it is like punishing a puppy for going to the bathroom on the new carpet.  I find it extremely sad that there are more programs to teach a new puppy better behaviors than there are to teach a teenager how to do basic adult skills, like opening a checking account or riding a bus.

Module 5 Pre Questions

For me I think the beginning of adult hood started when I was when I turned 18 years old, I was in my Senior year of high school and felt like I was on top of the world.  Looking back on it now I can remember my parents saying to me, just because you turned 18 does not mean that you are an adult.  But I truly felt like one, I was making decisions on what college I want to go to and what I was going to do with the rest of my life. 


Once I was at college it truly was like a culture shock here I was an adult but I so badly wanted to run home and not be an adult any more.  I was horribly homesick and I just wanted to run home and be treated like a kid again or at least an adolescent.  This left me in a role crisis I wanted to be in college and an adult, yet I did not like being so far away from home dealing with all the adult things that I was dealing with.  Like being alone in the hospital for the first time making all the decisions myself and determining my own health care plan. 


There was no major person influenced me through this process.  The professors at my college truly treated us all like adult babies knowing that for many of us it was our first time being away from home and being on our own.  My parent were so supportive during this time of transition allowing me to come home on the weekends to get away from the stress and my issues with my horrible roommate. 


For me there really was no new task as I entered this role other than being on my own and figuring out how to pay for college on my own.  My parents had done an excellent job raising me to be independent and making choices on my own.  While I was in high school my last few years they let me go to the doctor on my own to learn how to make health care decision on my own.  The drastic change was figuring out my own money and how to pay for my phone bill. 


The stressful part of this transition was my issues with my health and my college roommate.  She did not want to live with someone that had a seizure disorder and often tried to get me out of the room.  Things did get better for me the second half of my Freshman Year in college when that horrible roommate had left college and I had a much better time in college.  By then I had adjusted to life in college and things were better. 


For me I dealt with the stress my going home on the weekends to the peaceful lifestyle that was there.  I was able to eat the food that I liked and I was able to totally relax.  The stress of the negative situation with my college roommate was often overwhelming and going home for 32 hours of rest and relaxation was what I needed at the time.  When I was at college I self medicated with caffeine, this was where my bad habit of soda drinking when I was stressed started and to this day I have had trouble getting rid of this bad habit.  

Module 4 Death, Dying and Spirituality

For me my loss that stands out was not a loss of a loved one, but a loss of the better paying job. When I worked School Security it was the first time where I had a job that I could provide for my son and his special medical needs in a way that I wanted to. I was able to help my parents with the house mortgage, over all I felt things were good. I felt positive about myself, until I lost my job. This was the first time I had ever been really fired from a job.  Even though in the Hutchison book it states according to Silverman, "loss doesn't happen to us, rather it is 'something we must make sense out of, give meaning to and respond to'" for me this overwhelming lost left me stranded and yearning for answers to help my son (Hutchison, p. 423).

Looking back on it now I see where I was justified to have this overwhelming loss and feelings that I did.  I was in a state of shock and I was a parent that had an extremely ill son.  Like in the videos I did not experience one loss I experienced several losses, the loss of a job, of security, health insurance and money to provide for my family.  All these losses on top of each other compounded the issues and loss that I was experiencing overall.

Now I realize that it was right to grieve and morn this loss that I had experienced.  I was justified to take the time to grieve this huge loss and work through the process of it.  Looking back I do wish that my parents had been more supportive and helpful through the process of my grief process.  While they did say we are here for you the overwhelming guilt that I was experiencing over the loss of income made me feel like they were just belittling me.  This grief and guilt was compacted when the foreclosure papers come on our house, still to this day we live under the threat of foreclosure.  I totally felt like a failure I had never been fired from a job and felt like I had let everyone down around me, especially my son.

In the end this loss worked out for the best, if I had still had my job I wouldn't have gotten unemployment which assisted me while my son was inpatient in the hospital 5 hours away from our home. So in the end yes my theory worked out that everything does happen for a reason but it took a hell of a long time to learn that reasoning.          

Reference:

Hutchison, E. D. (2012). Dimensions of human behavior, the changing life course. (4 ed.). Sage Publications, Inc.                       

Module 3- Immigration

For me this unit was very revealing to me I had never really thought about the plight of those that were not natural born citizens in our country.  Sure everyone hears about how when they are unemployed how these certain individuals are taking away jobs of the righteous but in reality when I was unemployed I never really thought too much about that.  Additionally I think that if I was living in a different area of the country where immigrants where more abundant then maybe I would think about it differently.

I think what hit me so much this unit was the fact that I already knew the immigrant children could go to school legally with out any consequences, but I honestly never thought about what happens when they do graduate?  They now have this education yet they cannot not use it because they are not legal immigrants of this country.  Which brings up the point that was mentioned in our lecture often times the children were young when their parents chose to being them out of their native country to our county.

In the end I feel for those that are not legally in our country and the constant fear that they must live with.   Wondering how are they going to make ends meat and what happens to their children should they get caught up in the legal system.  This unit has in the end left me with more questions than answers ....

Module 2 Adolescents

For me I don’t look back on my adolescent years fondly we had recently moved to the Syracuse area when my father lost his job. This move brought us away from an area where my family was very involved in scouting and were well known in the community, even though it was a bigger community it had a small town feel to it. This was had to have been the biggest life changing even in my life, this one event lead me on a totally different path in my life. I went from having numerous friends that accepted me for who I was to have no friends and being bullied on a daily basis.

During this move my parents were the most worried about my sister who was changing school also but was a junior, my parents assumed since I was going to be changing schools in my old home town that I would be fine. In reality my sister fit into the new school with ease, even liking the new school better than the old. Where in stark contrast I did not fit in well, I was picked on because I did not wear girly clothes, I did not wear make-up and I was smart. At one point in school the other kids would take a drink out of the water fountain and then spit it on my back, this humiliating experience even got me to the point of being suicidal. I was called names and there was not a good day of school ever, I begged my parents to send me to Catholic school knowing I would have to wear a dress something I just did not do. But because of lack of income they could not send me. This brought on a new stress as the Wadsworth, et. al. (2008), article stated I began to worry about my parents not being able to pay their bills, I was aware that the house that we used to own was not selling and this was causing extra financial stress upon my parents. The greatest social pressure I felt during this time; was having to walk into that building and being happy about it, I ate lunch alone, I went to classes alone and generally just felt alone while I was being bullied to no end. The one thing that put an end to this all was I broke my finger very badly in gym class resulting in me have five surgeries but this meant I had to stay home until I recovered, I was so happy to hear that I did not go to school the extreme pain of my broken finger was a lower priority on the list. It has been only recently that my family knew that I was that suicidal during this time period, with the recent new stories of other teens completing suicide due to bullying my mom asked me if I felt suicidal during that time and I looked at her with tears in my eyes saying yes tried to do it at least once a week.

I responded to this extreme negative social pressure by doing everything in my power to stay home from school. My parents eventually allowed me to stay home every tenth day. I honestly did not care about perfect attendance or how poor my grade would be if I continued to miss school. Additionally I began to play the piano as a release of my frustration; this escape provided a much needed outlet of my frustrations in life.

The guidance counselor of my school tried to do everything in her power; she had me meet up with other students so I would have someone to eat with at lunch. While this was nice it backfired on her and my parents because then I was known as the looser that had to get a staff member to help me make friends. She reprimanded the students that did the most bullying on me, but this also backfired and their parents called me at home yelling at me stating I was causing trouble and their son was innocent. Later on I continued to see their wonderful son spit water on other students as well. I think during this time the most helpful thing would have been if my parents had even tried to contact the local Catholic school to see if they could have gotten a scholarship. Another resource that would have been more helpful is if my parents and my sister had not belittled me asking me to be more like my sister and make friends. Looking back on it I know what I would have done if this situation happened to my child, I would have had my child homeschooled until the year was done. In the end this is what my parents did. After I went back to school after my finger surgery, I started having horrible migraines the doctors tried to say it was psychological but in the end 6 months later my seizure disorder was discovered. I stayed home the last two months of school and only went in for final exams. I was able to pass them without issues since my new school district was a two years behind in their educational teaching than my old school was.

In conclusion I would like to start a program within the school systems about overall acceptance of everyone through their differences. I feel that I will be able to emphasize with other teens that are going through this because I know the horror that I went through.

References:

Wadsworth, M., Wolff, B., Santiago, C., & Moran, E. (2008). Adolescent coping with poverty-related stress [electronic version]. The Prevention Researcher, 15 (4), 13-16.

Ingrid