Walking A Mile In Her Shoes English Literature Essay

I made a new friend in class today and I was all excited. We made plans to meet at the cafeteria for lunch so we could get to know each other better. At 12pm, we both sat down to have lunch and the discussion started. As we got the pleasantries out of the way, more questions that were more serious came along. I asked her what she did for a living and she told me she was a dancer. My naïve mind was excited because I love to dance too so I said “me too”! She looked at me with surprise and said “really? What club”? Then my face dropped as it dawned on me what type of dancing she was talking about. My heart sank, as I did not know what to think of my newly found stripper friend. She noticed my expression and then said to me “don’t you dare look at me that way at least not until you’ve walked a mile in my shoes.” Then, we took a long walk in her shoes. Following her lead, she held my hands to where it all began. She led me into a run-down building, opened the door while we stepped inside. Another step in her shoe, she points to the remains of what was once a mattress and a pillow, both on the sandy floor. “Over there,” she said, “is where I cuddled my child for eighteen long months after my parents kicked me out.” She pointed to a black broken pot hidden in the shadows saying that was where they cooked all their meals when and if they had any. She went on to explain how her parents wanted her to give up her child for adoption. She had left the house the night they had a fight, after her mother hit her across the face with her fist while she was holding her baby. She swore never to return home after that incident. As I took each new step in her shoes, tears flowed out. Today, she works in a strip club to further her education and pay the bills while taking care of her child at the same time. My newly found friend Anita just turned twenty a couple of months ago. She is from West Africa, Nigeria to be specific. Anita was raised by her grandparents in Lagos Nigeria and never lived with her parents until she moved down to America three years ago.

According to Hutchison, based on Anita’s age in her changing life course process, she is a young adult. This period, according to Sigmund Freud is a time for work and love. At the period between adolescence and adulthood, most young adult’s lives are centered on building stable careers and relationships and the same time, most of them are living in obscurity. Over the years, it has been difficult in ascertaining the criteria’s involved in distinguishing the markers to tell when an individual has left the adolescence period or when they have transitioned into adulthood. Although there have been some proposed markers in the past like marriage and childbearing, Hutchinson’s book on Dimensions of Human Behavior, “The Changing Life Course”, states that current research have suggested that those transitional markers are no longer the salient markers characterizing the young adults in today’s society”(p. 288). She went ahead to explain why citing the fact that “in 1960, seventy-six percentage of women and sixty-five percentage of men left home, completed school, became financially independent, got married, and had at least one child by age 30. However, in the year 2000, not even half of the men and women had done so at the age of 30” (Furstenberg, Kennedy, McCloyd, Rumbaut, & Settersten, 2003, cited in Draut, 2005, p. 6). Furthermore, in John W. Santrock’s text, Life-Span Development, sociologist Kenneth Kenniston uses the word “youth” to describe the period between adolescence and adulthood. He states that it is a “time of extended economic and personal temporariness (Santrock 387).” He proposes that youth do not have the answers to questions that used to define adulthood because more young adults attend college now and marry later.

Theoretical Approaches to Young Adulthood

Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory

According to Hutchison, Erik Erikson theory explains the eight consecutive age-defined stages of development that attempts to explain each life course phase. Young adult, one of Erikson’s theories, describes it as “the time when individuals move from the identity fragmentation, confusion, and exploration of adolescence into a more intimate engagement with significant others (p. 290). The psychosocial challenge associated with this life stage is Intimacy versus isolation. Intimacy means the process of achieving a good and stable relationship with family, friends and partner’s. Erikson explained this stage as the giving and receiving of physical and emotional connection, support, love, comfort, trust, and all the other elements that we would typically associate with healthy adult relationships encouraging sex and child bearing. While Isolation on the contrary means being or feeling excluded from the regular life experiences of dating or being in a reciprocally loving relationship. Characteristics of isolation include feelings of loneliness, alienation or social withdrawal.

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In Anita’s case, she seems to be struggling with this stage especially the isolation part of it as she grew up never knowing what it was like to be loved by her own biological parents because her grandparents raised her. It also appears that because of that, she started looking for intimacy in the wrong places, which led to her being pregnant at such a young age. In addition to that, her parents were still not supportive of her keeping her child, which is why she left the house. Anita has been by herself, showing off her nudity for money. Hutchison believed that “those unsuccessful at achieving the proper intimacy at this stage, may feel alienated, disconnected and alone which may lead to a loss of self and a diminution of one’s constructed identity” (p. 290). She also believed that it was vital that people develop close, committed relationships with other people and that those who are successful at this step will develop relationships that are committed and secure.

Levinson’s Theory of Life Structure

Levinson’s theory of life structure is a core model of an individual’s life at any given point in time.  Optimally, a person’s life structure is primarily shaped by their social and physical environment, which involves family, friends, work, religion, race, and status. Levinson describes this stage as “a period of undulating stability and stress signified by transitions that occur at specific chronological times during the life course” (Hutchison, 2008, p. 291). He went on ahead to describe this life structure as the outcome resulting from specific decisions and choices made along the life course in areas such as relationships, occupation and childbearing. His theory involved two key concepts. The Stable period, when a person makes crucial choices in life like in Anita’s case, when she chose to keep the child and when she decided to leave her parents house. The Transitional period, is the end of an individual’s life stage and the beginning of a new one. In the case of Anita, the end of a life stage was when she became pregnant and the beginning of another was when she gave birth to the child. An individual’s social and economic factor in life can either solidify or weaken their life structure at this stage of their life. Anita’s situation at home, led her to make certain decisions that has affected her life structure and she is going to have to deal with the consequence of her decisions. Levinson proposes that the presence of a mentor is a great influence in guiding the person through the obstacles in their chosen paths (Hutchison, 2008, p. 291).

Arnett’s “Emerging” Adulthood

Arnett discusses “Emerging” adulthood in Hutchison’s book as the “developmental phase distinct from both adolescence and adulthood, occurring between the ages of 18 and 25 in industrialized societies (Hutchison, 2008, p. 292). He discusses it as the process where an individual leaves the dependency of adolescence however; they are yet to enter the life stage of adulthood. In summary, he defined emerging adulthood as the time from the end of adolescence to the young-adult responsibilities of a stable job, marriage and parenthood. He also claims that there to be five features of emerging adult: Age of identity exploration, Age of instability, Age of self-focus, Age of feeling in between and Age of possibilities (Arnett & Tanner, 2006).

Anita’s life transition exemplifies these transitions. Her experience as a single mother, has helped her in being very picky about who she chooses to be in a relationship with, more focus about her life in regards to her education, and her experience with her mother, she say’s has motivated her into being the mother she never had to her daughter. It appears that Anita is in the Age of possibilities where optimism reigns. Most emerging adults in this stage believe they have better chances of living than their parents did. This theory explains the exploration during young adulthood. It allows us to understand Anita’s journey through exploration towards stability.

Concepts

Romantic Relationships

Platonic relationships in general I think are hard for anyone to handle more less a romantic relationship. Hutchinson defined romantic relationship as “a relationship that is sexually oriented, spontaneous and voluntary, and occurs between equal partners” (p. 306). Unlike other types of relationships, the feelings involved in romantic relationships are very strong yet delicate making it very easy to feel hurt or betrayed. One important factor to having a great romantic relationship is to have the satisfaction of both partners and to have a balance of both positive and negative relations across time. Great romantic relationships can affect one’s health, stress level, goals, and achievements either positively or negatively.

People who grow up in dysfunctional relationships have been doomed to consequently have bad relationship skills however, that is not the case in very situation. Anita’s situation is an example of such. She grew up without her parents hence; she lacked the love and upbringing every other normal child should have. Although that led her to seek that intimacy elsewhere, she on the other hand, would never part with her child. Although she is not in any romantic relationship now, she has a great relationship with her child as well as her professors and classmates; she is also very friendly and easy to talk to. Her pregnancy at such a young age, has made her very vulnerable and reluctant to be involved with any one romantically. However, I think this is something she would grow out of once she solidifies and is satisfied with the basic relationships around her and learns more about herself.

Parenthood

Hutchinson describes parenting as an interactive process, with reciprocal parent-child and child-parent influences (p. 309). She went on ahead to say that the role of parenthood could both be exciting and challenging. The latter was the case for Anita who had to accept the fact that her parents would never accept her child and furthermore, she had to move out to fend for herself after the birth of her child at such a young and vulnerable stage of her life. In her case, she was a single parent has the father of the child was not active in the life of the child. Fortunately, for Anita, during the early years after the birth of her child, she was receiving parenting efficacy from a church whose mission goal was to help teenage mothers. It was not until she turned nineteen, then she became a dancer/stripper to enable her earn money for child-care services so she could continue her education. Studies have shown that parenting efficacy has contributed to a more positive child outcome and parenting skills in young adults (Ardelt & Eccles, 2001).

Mentoring

Mentoring is one person helping another person to achieve something or become a better person. It is about giving help and support in a manner that the mentee will value and empower them to move forward with confidence towards what they want to achieve. Anita is currently involved with big brothers/big sisters, a non-profit organization involve in the mentorship of young adults. She is also a mentor for Girls Inc., another non-profit organization for young females. This would be of a great avenue for her to move through the transition of young adulthood by sharing her experiences with the girls and learning from her peers and mentees.

Identity Development

Identity development is how one thinks and relates to oneself in terms of work, love, self-esteem etc. How one thinks about themselves is important because it also explains how they relate to other people. Over time, as people grow, they redefine their commitments in life and their goals. Having a healthy identity development is good because it influences one’s self esteem. For Anita, parenthood had both a negative and positive effect on her. A negative effect in the sense that it really affected her childhood, and the positive effect in the sense that it made her mature into a responsible woman at a young age.

Immigration and Work

According to Rumbaut and Portes, immigrant groups experience gaps in social, economic, and legal status that are even greater than the gaps between native whites and blacks. The transition to adulthood is a complex process in which young adults who have been dependent on parents throughout childhood start taking definitive steps to achieve measures of financial and emotional independence. Although most young adults successfully complete these transitions, many other’s experience setbacks early on by becoming parents too soon, dropping out of school, or getting in trouble with the legal system which happened to be Anita’s case. Anita’s experiences not only made the transition to adulthood more difficult, but it also compromised her potential in having better adolescence/young adulthood. Her immigration status as a temporary resident does not make the situation any better. The lack thereof of a job due to her immigration status made her settle for the dancing/stripping as a profession.