Family Life Cycle Project

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Family Life Cycle Project

The life cycle of a family involves all the stages that a family goes through at a given time in life. Theories have been developed to help understand the different and more comprehensive stages of human development and the family life cycle. The family life cycle begins with one becoming an adult and maturing and ends with aging. Families have to send their children out of their homes to start a life of their own to ensure the family continues in all generations. In this project, an analysis of how Johnson’s family has gone through the family life cycle stages from the initial stage to the last will be discussed.

1st Stage: Maturing

The first stage of the family cycle is when a child becomes an adult and is ready to start their own life. At this point, parents need to allow separation from their grown-up children for the family cycle to continue. At this stage, my father (Johnson) had already completed his teaching course but had not yet got a job. He was doing small-scale farming in his father’s land, and it is from this, he earned a leaving. After two years of practicing agriculture, my father got employed as a teacher in a public school.

2nd Stage: Establishment and Marriage

Figure SEQ Figure * ARABIC 1 courtesy of jewelry mart

The second phase is the phase of self-realization, and a grown-up adult starts making plans for future life. By the time my father wanted to marry, he had saved some finances that made him start a new life of being husband and wife. My mother was married at the age of 20, and she had completed her teaching course but had no permanent job.

3rd Stage: Child Bearing

Figure SEQ Figure * ARABIC 2 courtesy of deposit photos

The childbearing stage comes with many shifts in the parents’ lives, and some goals need to be achieved for this stage to be successful. With the first year of marriage, my parents conceived their first child. Being their first pregnancy, they had a hard time understanding the pregnancy journey, but since my grandmother was around them, she helped them through the journey. After the first successful pregnancy, my parents had captured what needed to be done, and they were ready to give birth to more children.

4th Stage: Children in Pre-School

Figure SEQ Figure * ARABIC 3 courtesy of clipart library

This stage involves many children being brought up in a family. By this stage, my parents had already given birth to four children, and they had most of them joining pre-school. My siblings were all grown, and they started experiencing differences within each other. At this point, our second eldest brother felt like my parents did love him since they concentrated more on our last born. My sister (cate), who is the eldest, complained of too much work allocated for her. At this point, my parents started to experience increases in financial demand as learning started.

5th Stage: School-Aged Children

At this point, everyone in our home was in an education facility since education was termed as the key to success. My siblings and I were subjected to school curriculum forcing our parents to create a relationship between teachers and religious leaders. At this point, we could tell our future aspirations, and our parents helped us work towards our dreams.

6th Stage: Families With Adolescents

The sixth stage can be overwhelming to parents if they lack an effective way of dealing with adolescents. The age gap between my siblings and I was not that big, and this made us be in the same age group. When adolescence began, it started from my elder sister and later to the youngest. My mom and dad explained how difficult this stage of growth was to them. Every child started developing identities, and they felt that our parents needed to give them space. The adolescent stage also came with sharing responsibilities, and everyone had a duty to perform.

7th Stage: Family With Young Adults

At this stage, all of my parent’s children were fully grown. My elder sister, immediately after her first degree she decided to start a life of her own. After a few years, my second-born brother also moved out. This series of events continued until the last-born child moved out. The family size becomes smaller since it was only my dad and mom who left home. My brothers, after some years, got married, and this widened the family circle.

8th Stage: Parents At Middle Years

when parents are at their middle age, this marks the start of the 8th stage. At this stage, they were still working, but they had a few years to retire. Since they did not have a lot of bills to pay, they started planning for their retirement. They started a real estate company that would help them survive after they had retired. This life stage made my parents close to each other, and they even renewed their marriage vows. Three of my siblings gave birth, and my parents started welcoming grandchildren.

9th Stage: Aging Family Members

Figure SEQ Figure * ARABIC 4 courtesy of dreamstime.com

The 9th phase is characterized by retirement and a decrease in financial income. After sixty years of working as a teacher, my parents retired. Life after retirement was not hard for them because they had already worked on the retirement projects that would finance them.

10th Stage: The Oldest Old

The last stage of the family life cycle is somehow challenging for most families. Parents at this point become old, and they start having health problems. After retirement, my parents decided to relocate to their retirement home upcountry and continued practicing farming. Although they face some physical limitations, they are still fighting to stay alive.

Reference

Chalea Waite. (2017) Family Development Theory.

https://youtu.be/bZeFN_1zcXU

Emily Stephens (2016) The Family Life Cycle

https://youtu.be/ZN_5nMQfDFw

Multicultural Family Institute. 2020. Family Life Cycle Video: A Framework for Systems Therapy.

https://youtu.be/YMUwHG0TYTA