Psychologist Erik Erikson identified eight “stages of psychosocial development,” passage through which were sequential, cumulative, and necessary to healthy development. One of the more advanced stages – the seventh – is called “generativity.”
Generativity involves taking responsibility for those coming after you. Previous stages involved relationships with contemporaries, those living alongside you: parents, friends, spouses. Generativity takes development one step further by assuming responsibility for those who will follow you and (usually) for whose very existence you are responsible.
The most basic expression of generativity is procreation, i.e., parenthood. But just because it’s common that does not mean it’s unimportant. The flight from parenthood today says a lot about people’s maturity. Simply put, procreation – one’s personal contribution to humanity – is not compensated for by “nurturing” one’s profession, furry babies, or “the planet.”
But another aspect of this matter concerns what we leave our kids. The New York Times recently published an article “In Retirement, You May Not Need to Spend So Much”, the thrust of which was to allay financial fears about retirement because spending generally declines with age.
In that sense, it counterbalanced the typical, jarring questions about whether “you will outlive your money” or how bankrupt Social Security is. The piece appeared after six straight days…
