Predictable Crises of Adulthood

              I think one of the most interesting things about this section is how Sheehy presented the interviews from the two couples. As I believe her intention was, I thought that couple A was the older couple while couple B was the younger couple, and I was shocked when I learned that my belief was mistaken. Though both interviews said relatively the same thing, there was just something about how each entry was written to cause me to mistake the identity of each couple. I do wonder though if this had been altered at all or if the words written were the words spoken verbatim. Also, how many couples did she ask these questions to? A sample size of two is far too small to draw any conclusions from.

              Another interesting point that Sheehy brings up is that passages are internally motivated from people evolving, rather than environmental factors changing causing people to evolve. I don’t know if I necessarily agree with this. Sheehy does mention in her outline of the passages that societal pressure does exist, but I wonder if we lived in a completely different society with different morals, or perhaps outside of a society altogether, if the passages would remain the same. I don’t think so, which causes me to believe that the life passages are externally motivated.

That is what I want the class to discuss: whether or not passages are truly internally motivated.