RUTH ALLENThe period of the Entry Life Structure most often begins at 22 and ends at 28. The primary tasks of this period are to build and maintain a first adult life structure and to enrich one’s life within this structure. Several other tasks derive from the primary ones. Work must be done on the various components of the emerging life structure. Within each component it is necessary to make major choices, to modify old relationships and to establish new ones. One or a few components will become central in the structure, others may drop out altogether, and still others may fluctuate in relative importance before taking a more stable place at the center or periphery. A woman must take a further step in her relationship to marriage, motherhood, family of origin, occupation, the wider community. She often has the illusion—so common at the start of every structure-building period—that if she just makes the right choices and forms the right relationships, she can create a satisfactory life pattern that will last forever after.
In the homemaker sample this period began at age 22 for most women, at 23 for two. It ended at 28, except for one at 27 and one at 29. For all fifteen women, marriage/family was the central component of the Entry Life Structure. There was no other component of major significance, except for a few lives in which family of origin or religion played a major part. Occupation was a central component only for Jenny Abatello, but it remained unfilled while she devoted herself primarily to family. Most women held outside jobs at times but none made much investment of self in occupation.
A single life structure predominated in each woman’s life during the entire period. There was, however, an evolution within the structure. The first phase of this period lasted from about 22 to 25, the second phase from 25 to 28. The move from initial to final phase almost always occurred at 25—not before late 24 or after early 26. Because of this age specificity I have called it the Age 25 Shift. It was discovered here by Judy Levinson in her careful biographical reconstructions of the lives of all forty-five women studied. I did not identify this shift in the earlier study of men, but it may exist for men as well.
The first phase is primarily a time of building—forming key relationships, strengthening commitments, and getting an Entry Life Structure in place. Some young women make their key choices before the period begins. In the initial phase they attempt to firm up each relationship and to integrate the various components. Other young women use this phase in a more tentative way, exploring possible choices and working on troublesome components. When a woman’s life is externally stable and well ordered during this time, she still has inner concerns to deal with and changes to make before the new structure can be firmly established. When her life is relatively unsettled, she is trying to clarify her priorities and form a stable structure.
The shift that occurs at 25 is on a smaller scale than the transition from one life structure to another, but it is of decisive importance in bringing about the change from initial to final phase of this period. No one can fully establish a life structure before 25. The initial version of the structure is incomplete or poorly integrated in some important respects. There are problems of various kinds—a bad marriage or job, wanting marriage or children but not having them, the multiple pressures of homemaking, being too enmeshed with or too distant from parents, conflict between work and family.
At 25 a woman comes to a clearer recognition that her life has such problems and decides to make some changes. The changes are often highly specific: to get married, to end or stay in a difficult marriage, to have a child, get a job, go back to school, give a markedly higher or lower priority to a particular aspect of living. The specific choices are, however, rooted in more general concerns. She is taking a firmer position about the kind of life she wants to have. She is deciding which component(s) of the Entry Life Structure will be central, which peripheral or excluded. She is seeking a more stable order within which to pursue her aspirations. The change, in short, involves more than a single relationship or aspect of life; it is intended to make her life as a whole more integrated and satisfying.
The meaning of the shift is usually not very conscious or articulated, especially as it is happening. Some women make a dramatic change without much conscious reflection or planning, and recognize only later (or never) what their intentions were. For others the shift is more subtle and hardly noticeable. For example, a woman has a second child—an event that has no unusual significance to her husband or others. In her mind, however, the decision to have another child derives from a more fundamental life choice: to remain in a difficult marriage, or to put aside for a time her occupational interests. Another woman takes a new job not markedly different from an earlier one. From an external point of view, it is not a notable event. From a subjective point of view, however, it constitutes a major turning point: she is choosing not merely to take another job, but to become more independent, establish a more defined occupation, and give her family a less exclusively central place in her life. Her private intentions in making the choice may not become clearly conscious for many months or years. The impact of the choice on her life structure is evident more quickly.
Although the Age 25 Shift usually involves one or a few major life events, we cannot determine the nature and consequences of the shift by looking solely at the external events. It is essential to look as well at the personal meaning of the events and the life structure in which they occur. The Age 25 Shift crystallizes the Entry Life Structure and instigates the second phase of this period.
Some women have a relatively satisfactory life structure in place by 26 and then devote the second phase to enhancing their lives within it. Others decide at 25 to make a major change but need another few years to implement the choice. For example, a single woman may come to feel at 25 that her most urgent priority is to marry and start a family, but it takes another few years to marry, have a child, and establish a pattern of family life. Marriage/family was the central yet unfilled component of her initial phase and was gradually “filled in” during the final phase.
Let us now examine the various ways in which the homemakers’ lives evolved during this period. I will group them according to the three patterns noted in Chapter 4.
Seven women were mothers of one to four children when they started building an Entry Life Structure. Family had been the central component of the provisional life structure they created in the Early Adult Transition, and it became the pillar of the new life structure. In many cases the external features of their lives did not change markedly in the new period. A closer look shows, however, that the Entry Life Structure differed in significant respects from the provisional structure of the Early Adult Transition.
One crucial change was in the character of the marital relationship. By the start of the period all seven women came to realize, with various mixtures of bitterness, depression, and resignation, that their marriage had severe limitations and was not likely to improve. The man they had married could not be the caring husband and responsible family man they had once hoped for.
Ruth Allen left her first husband at 23, immediately formed a stable relationship with another man, and started building an Entry Life Structure in which family was the central component. The other six—Vicky Perrelli, Nora Cole, Wendy Lewis, Carol O’Brien, Beth Logan, Lynn McPhail—decided that, despite the problems, the marriage was at least minimally adequate. It seemed better than the available alternatives—returning to the parental home or becoming for an indefinite time (perhaps permanently) a poor, employed, divorced mother and “single head of household.” Each woman began making a sharper distinction between marriage and family. Her main commitment was to child-rearing and maintaining an intact family. Her husband was important as a provider, a public head of family, and in some cases a father, but the marriage now had a different place in the Entry Life Structure. She invested less of herself in the marital relationship and accepted less in return from her husband. If he had previously been somewhat unreliable as a provider and participant in family life, she demanded greater responsibility in these respects; but they lived in even more separate worlds and led more clearly demarcated parallel unconnected lives.
During the initial phase, then, these women formed an Entry Life Structure in which family was the central component, marriage was a necessary but limited component, and there was little else of any personal significance. For some it was a rock bottom time of acute suffering, for others a difficult time borne with acquiescence and denial but little conscious pain. For none was it a thriving or joyful time.
All seven women went through an Age 25 Shift. External events usually triggered the shift and gave it a particular shape. In every case, however, the woman responded to the events by strengthening the family as the central component of her life structure and by redefining the marital relationship. She also began to engage in outside activities that were satisfying in their own right and that supported her primary commitment to family. The Age 25 Shift thus produced minor but important changes within the Entry Life Structure, to some extent strengthening and enriching it.
Six of the seven women got pregnant and had another child at age 25 or 26. The pregnancy occurred at a time when the woman was feeling keenly the limitations of her marriage and her highly domestic life. Why did she have a child at this point? A major reason was that the new child helped her maintain the existing life structure by providing some additional satisfactions, strengthening her commitment to homemaking, and enabling her to avoid focusing more directly on her dissatisfactions. Four of the six women decided during the pregnancy or shortly after that this would be their last child; and in fact it was. They came to understand, usually in the Age 30 Transition, that with this child they were coming to the limit of their commitment to a predominantly family-centered life. In another few years this life structure would have to be modified. In effect, the child gave them a little more time—time to stay put, to avoid facing major problems, to continue a certain kind of domestic life.
The Age 25 Shift led to a final phase in which the Entry Life Structure was consolidated and stabilized. For example, at 25 Beth Logan and Vicky Perrelli both moved with their husbands and children back to their hometowns after several years away. They then established closer ties to their families of origin, and Vicky had another child. With the support of parents they remained in problematic marriages and shored up sagging life structures.
RUTH ALLENAfter my husband left I got welfare and food stamps and stayed home with my children. I was badly hurt by Nathan and felt I would never trust a man again. I was 23 when I met Luke, who was 23 years older than me. I’d see him around and we’d talk, but I ignored his advances for months. Then one night he got upset and said, “I know you’ve been hurt by that husband of yours but all men are not like that. I’m glad your husband left because I like you a lot.” We started a relationship. He was married with grown children. Divorce was never an issue. His wife knew that there was another woman but as long as Luke didn’t divorce her she accepted it.
It was a much better relationship than my marriage had been. He drank but he never abused me. He was the kind of man I’d wished my ex-husband had been. He was a good provider. I never wanted for anything. He made sure I had an open account at the store in case I needed food or clothing for the children. People knew about the relationship. My mother never approved of my going with a married man. I would never take him to her house. But if my family came to my house and Luke was there then he stayed. That was my house; I paid the rent.
I had two children with Luke, Jill and Dean. I practiced birth control—foam and birth control pills—but it just never worked for me, not even the IUD. When I got pregnant with Jill at 24, to me it wasn’t a sin. The church tried to throw me out because I was a married woman having a child with another man. I stood up in that church and I told them to prove it. “You don’t take care of me; I take care of myself.” They had no right to say anything; it was none of their business. They had never come to my rescue when my husband was beating on me. They never asked how I got those black eyes. They never asked me if my children were hungry. I just continued to go to church. It hurt me that they did that but I was not going to let those people get me down.
When I told Luke I was pregnant he was very happy. He was more of a husband to me than my ex-husband had ever been. He really was a good provider. He was very proud of his baby. He said all the spunk hadn’t left him yet; he could still make babies. He was proud of that. It made our relationship stronger. I loved Luke, I really loved him. I’m not going to say that it was passionate as far as being sexual was concerned. It’s just that I loved Luke for who he was to me, for his kindness, for his understanding. I wasn’t involved with anyone else those five years. He never said he loved me but he said he had never felt that way with a woman before. He and I were very close, very compatible. We never argued. We enjoyed each other. We didn’t talk much but we were very playful with one another. He often said he’d wished it was me he’d married. I’d like to have married him but I would never tell him to leave his wife. The way I see it now is: I had a fling that lasted five years, that two children I love came out of.
At 25 I took a nurse’s aide training course for six months. I was in the top 5 percent of my class and got a job immediately. I worked there almost two years. I wasn’t earning much money; I was still getting welfare supplements and food stamps but I was making it. We had food, and my bills were always paid. I even purchased things on the time plan. I tried not to rely too much on Luke. I never asked him for anything. I loved working as a nurse’s aide. I began getting stronger. I felt that I had something within me that I wanted to share, and taking care of patients was a good feeling. Then I got laid off and drew unemployment. Then I cleaned houses and baby-sat, plus welfare.
I got pregnant, even with birth control pills, and had Dean at 28. After Dean was born I broke up with Luke. The reason I broke up was because I began to sit down and look at my life and to think about all the opportunities out there in this world that I wanted to tackle, and I just felt with Luke I couldn’t do that. I had been to Connecticut on vacation and liked what I saw. My sisters begged me to move there. So I did. I have a lot of feelings for Luke even today; I think about him still. I’m sort of sorry things turned out the way they did. I got a job at a hospital as an aide and started a new life with my children.
The nonlegal marriage to Luke served a number of important functions in Ruth Allen’s life. It enabled her to form a Traditional Marriage Enterprise of the kind she had always envisioned. He was a good enough provider, materially and emotionally, to ensure the survival and well-being of the family. He enabled her to be primarily a homemaker and to make family the center of her life. But the marriage was also flawed in several respects. It was not especially passionate. It created tensions in Ruth’s relationships with her mother, church, and community. She continued to feel some guilt in relation to Luke’s wife and family. She understood that, for all its seriousness and positive qualities, it was also “a fling”—a nonbinding, tentative relationship that could not permanently endure.
Paradoxically, these limitations were also advantages for her. She urgently wanted a husband/father who would take adequate care of her family but she was not ready to rely heavily on a marital relationship or to invest much of herself in it. The tentativeness and time-limited character of the nonlegal marriage were thus assets as well as liabilities for her. Being the “second” rather than the sole wife suited her quite well during this period. If Luke spent less time with her than he otherwise might have, he also made fewer demands and gave her more space to pursue her own interests. They had more time together and had a stronger relationship than most of the full-time married couples. Ruth gradually acquired job skills and became more able to take care of herself. At 28, entering the Age 30 Transition, she was ready to leave Luke and seek a new life, within which she would attempt to form a new marriage.
LYNN MCPHAILI married Jim at 19 and moved from the Midwest to New Haven. I got pregnant right away and had my first baby at 20. We never used birth control—we just took what came. Jim had no ambition and didn’t want to work. I found out I’d married a Mama’s boy. He finally got a job, and we moved into our own apartment. Before that we lived with his family. He was never home. He worked nights, slept days, and visited his mother all the time. I kept asking myself, “What kind of life is this for me and the baby?”
At 22 I went to work full-time as a clerk in a supermarket, because we needed the money. I never wanted to be a working mother—I wanted to be at home with my daughter. I firmly believe that mothers should be at home unless it’s a pressing financial need. I finally got pregnant at 23 and stayed home. I’d been exposed to German measles, and the doctor wanted me to abort. No way! I gave birth at 23, and she does have her problems; she is blind in one eye and has heart problems.
My first son, Barry, was born when I was 25. At that point I demanded that we get a house. I needed, finally, to have my own place. We got a house but Jim couldn’t stand the pressure—the house, the kids, and the job. For about six weeks there were signs that he was nuts. He was talking to the TV and being physically abusive of me and the kids. He thought I was having affairs with everyone in town. We took him to the doctor, who gave him some pills. One night he tried to kill me [age 26]!
Jim was put in a mental hospital 25 miles away. He was there for almost two years, and I visited him twice a week. I didn’t drive but I got rides. I never considered leaving him. I had a 5-year-old and a 22-month-old and a 5-month-old and all the bills, but I had taken a vow for better or worse. Well, this was worse, all right. We went on welfare and had a really hard time, but we made it. I finally got my driving license and was more independent. I raised the kids completely on my own, from then on.
When Jim was discharged he came home and went back to his job. I managed the house and the bills and kept all stress away from him. I didn’t especially want more kids, but the hospital psychiatrist said it would help Jim’s self-esteem to father more. That’s how the last two kids were born. At 28 I got pregnant and had a miscarriage. When I was in the hospital Jim didn’t even come to visit me. That hurt! I had visited him twice a week while he was in the hospital. I felt that nobody gave a damn about me. But soon I got pregnant again and had Dana when I was 29. [The pregnancies at 28 and 29 mark the start of her Age 30 Transition.]
Three women—Sara Cushing, Jenny Abatello, Kay Ryan—married at age 22 and had their first child at 23, as they began forming an Entry Life Structure. The initial phase of this period was largely taken up with establishing a family and a new life structure. Becoming a homemaker was surprisingly difficult. The heavy burdens of life in this period contrasted sharply with the protected character of their previous lives.
All three women built an Entry Life Structure in which family was the central component. Each was faced with the multiple responsibilities of motherhood and home management, as well as forming and maintaining a marital relationship very different from the courting relationship. The husband worked hard, often overtime or at more than one job, and was minimally available for domestic work or pleasure. The splitting of the domestic and public worlds led the couple into increasingly parallel unconnected lives. Marriage provided an essential basis for family life, but the marital relationship was extremely limited.
Family of origin was an important secondary component in the Entry Life Structure. Although they wanted to become somewhat more independent of parents, these young women also looked to parents for various benefits: financial assistance, gifts, baby-sitting, emotional support. Mother was the key figure in the family of origin. The father had less presence and played a shadowy part. While seeking greater independence in some ways, the young women continued to seek maternal advice, to be highly vulnerable to maternal disapproval, and to have difficulty asserting themselves when they felt controlled or criticized. They took a small step from good girl/daughter in the parental home to good married daughter closely attached to the parental home.
Although mother gave concrete assistance and advice regarding specific problems, mother and daughter did not have a mentorial relationship. They did not talk about more fundamental issues for the daughter in becoming a wife, mother, adult; nor did she feel that her mother was a special source of wisdom and personal growth as she sought to make her way in the adult world. She felt, rather, that her mother continued to treat her as “my little girl” and to keep her in a dependent position. Despite a vague resentment about this, she found it difficult to separate emotionally and to take a more independent stand.
For Kay Ryan and Sara Cushing, occupation was virtually absent as a component of the Entry Life Structure. In the first months of the marriage they held routine jobs to help with the finances. After getting pregnant they gladly gave up the jobs and devoted themselves almost exclusively to homemaking.
SARA CUSHINGI married at 22 and had my daughter Jane at 23. I was then on birth control pills until 25. Bill and I had lots of arguments. My daughter and I formed a pair, and Bill was not with us. I wrapped her in my world. My life revolved around her whether my husband was home or not. Bill wasn’t part of disciplining her, either. He only reprimanded her if she got in his viewing field of the TV, only if she bothered him—which I didn’t think was right.
In my twenties I was in a fog. I never expressed an opinion. My whole life revolved around my child and friends. But it was an okay life—everyone I knew was living the same way. When I was 25 I asked, “How can I better my life?” The only answer I could come up with was to have another baby—there were no other options. I wasn’t happy with what I had. But I never tried to change me; I just felt sorry for myself. I was blaming my husband because he wasn’t earning enough money. I didn’t feel secure in my life as far as being taken care of. I saw my friends saving and buying homes but we couldn’t. We were going nowhere.
Then Bill wanted me to go to work! I wouldn’t even think of it. I wanted the kind of life my parents had: my father earned the money, and my mother stayed home and took care of the house. Divorce was a thought at 25 but it was put on hold. Bill was always more interested in being out with the guys than with me. I resented that. I always knew that I didn’t want to live my whole life with him. Something wasn’t right—I really hated being with him. There was a sense that I wasn’t important to him. I knew he wasn’t satisfied with our life, and it made me feel that it was somehow my fault. I hoped that having a second baby would make the marriage better and would make Bill change, and then he’d settle down and not need to go out with his male friends. I still wanted that storybook ending. Bill agreed to have another baby, and I got pregnant at 25 but had a miscarriage. I had another miscarriage at 26. That was very sad, and I was very depressed. I wanted another baby real bad. There was a sense of failure if you just had one—a failure to fulfill my dream of having three kids.
Another big change at 25 was that my parents moved to another state. I had a real sense of freedom but felt guilty about it. My mother had been helpful with baby-sitting but she was very critical and made me feel like a rotten mother. I had been very dependent on her for approval. At the same time I also had a sense of loss of the family. I felt abandoned, like an orphan.
Bill was making hardly any money. I nagged him into taking another job where he would make more. He took the job but he hated every minute there and complained every minute he was home. He made more money but we were still very poor. We were months behind in our bills and often didn’t have enough money for food. I earned money at home, typing and baby-sitting. We bought groceries with the money I made.
Finally, after trying for three long years, I got pregnant at 28 and had my son at 29. That started a whole new time in my life.
JENNY ABATELLOJenny Abatello was the only homemaker with a Dream of having an occupational career. In this sense she was marginal between the homemakers and the career women. A major theme throughout her adulthood was the struggle to include both family and occupation as central components of her life structure:
As a girl I expected to have a life pretty much like my mother’s. I certainly didn’t go far afield of my family geographically or emotionally or any other way. By twelfth grade I knew what my future would be: I’d marry my high school boyfriend and have a family. I also wanted to have a career in teaching but I didn’t see how to do that. I married Steve at 22, as I graduated from college. I worried about having this marriage and my career. I knew that Steve, who was 25, would want to have kids soon. I knew I shouldn’t say that we should wait before having kids. We never discussed it. I thought, “I’ll never get established in my career”—and I never did really. That first summer was boring at home, and I got to know how little there was to do there without children. When I started my teaching job in September I felt on top of the world: I’d made it! Birth control was frowned on; you took what God sent you. And my mother was pushing us to make her a grandmother. We lived in my old neighborhood a few houses from my parents. I got pregnant in the first academic year, finished out the year, and quit at 23 to have my family. I figured I wouldn’t be able to return for ten or fifteen years until the children were older because it was unheard of at that time for a mother to work unless it was a financial necessity.
The first year of marriage was okay, no serious problems. I was going to be a good little wife. Steve was a pretty traditional man, and he expected a pretty traditional marriage—but he also respected my education and my desire to teach. The biggest problem was that he did hard physical labor, came home exhausted, had supper, and fell asleep watching TV. At first I didn’t think it would turn out too well. He got up at 5:30, and I was just going to sleep at 1:30. When I got pregnant I was really upset. I remember crying all by myself when I came home from the doctor’s, thinking, “I’ve not had a chance to really begin my life, and now I won’t be able to do anything.” Steve and my family and his family were delighted about the baby. It was pretty hard not to share their enthusiasm, but I just wasn’t ready for this.
My first child, Guy, had a traumatic C-section birth. I felt like a total failure—couldn’t have a baby the normal way, couldn’t even nurse him. I had a horrible postpartum depression that lasted over a year. The next two years were horrible. Steve was laid off for a while, and my family had to take care of us financially. I was totally involved with Guy. No one had ever been so emotionally dependent on me before. It was draining. I felt so guilty: “Dear God, does this kid know I’d rather be someplace else, anyplace else?” I wasn’t too domestic with the house, either.
I got engulfed! I was totally responsible for this child. I just felt cut off from any kind of social life, any kind of career. I felt hemmed in, closed in, afraid that I would never have an adult to talk to again. Steve’s family thought I was a complete waste. I learned what being accepted by them meant—having coffee and talking at each other’s home every day. How I envied my single friends! They were working, traveling, free. I tried all sorts of things to fill the void. I got Steve to join a bowling league and have some friends. He knew I was depressed and bitchy, and he tried to help. But after a year he had enough and stopped going out. I guess I was seeing my own needs and saying he needed to get out.
I still remember waking up in the morning and thinking; “Good grief, is this the way it’s going to be, day after day after day?” I tried to discuss it with my mother and mother-in-law, but they were pretty tough on me emotionally and didn’t understand what the fuss was about. After all, this was what marriage and motherhood were about. I’d see kids I went to high school with, pushing their baby carriages around. I thought, “I’m in the club now!” I was pretty sure I didn’t want any part of it—but I stayed.
By the time Jenny was 25, Steve had a better job, the family had their own place, and things were more settled. Jenny could now take preliminary steps to enrich her life. She took an evening graduate course. She discussed with Steve the idea of having a part-time job as a substitute teacher. He agreed, as he generally did when she took a strong initiative around her educational-occupational interests. To her surprise, “It was horrible to sub—zooey, not a career.” Within a few months she decided to have another child. “I thought, ‘Why not?’ I knew I didn’t want just one child. If I was going to stay home anyway I might as well get it over with, though I wasn’t very enthused about having another baby.”
Jenny’s second child was born just as she turned 26. The birth completed the Age 25 Shift and brought her into the final phase of the Entry Life Structure:
Maggie was born without trauma. I felt like Mother of the Year—a typical American woman with my boy and my girl and my house. We were renting a better house by that time, right next to my parents. I really got into the domestic scene—entertained, took gourmet cooking classes. I felt, “Maybe this isn’t going to be so bad after all.” I also decided, soon after Maggie’s birth, not to have more kids; two was just right. I never discussed it with Steve, and he didn’t push it. As the kids got older they were like real people and much more interesting to me than infants. I took them places, tried to be Supermom. And Steve helped more: he loved them as babies but didn’t do much with them, then after a year or so they began a close relationship. He’s a good father. Thoughts of work were less in my mind until I was 28.
The conflict between the internal Traditional Homemaker Figure and the internal Anti-Traditional Figure was clearly a fundamental theme in Jenny’s life. The former gave her the benefits of being closely attached to the world of her origins, but it also limited her exploration of other worlds and modes of living. The latter aspired to further education, a more “modern” outlook, and the pursuit of her own career aspirations. The two figures were absolutely antithetical in her mind and in her world. It seemed impossible to combine them or to find a middle ground. The basic choice, as Jenny experienced it, was to be a dutiful daughter, wife, and mother in a secure, well-defined world, or to risk losing all that that world offered in a search for something else that might not be available.
Among the homemakers generally, the internal Traditional Homemaker Figure was predominant and the internal Anti-Traditional Figure relatively unformed or suppressed at least until the late twenties. In Jenny Abatello’s case, however, these internal figures engaged in three major struggles between ages 18 and 25. Each struggle was shaped by the developmental period in which it occurred. The Traditional Homemaker Figure won out in all three but the opposition kept gaining ground. Because they reflect so well the stability as well as the change in her life during these years, I’ll review briefly the three choice points and the struggles they elicited.
The first choice point came at 18, the start of Jenny’s Early Adult Transition. During high school Jenny had mentorial relationships with two female teachers who recognized her unusual talents and encouraged her to pursue a teaching career. Knowing of her family’s limited means, they offered to assist her in obtaining an excellent college education. At graduation she chose, instead, to attend a less than excellent local college. While financial problems were a consideration, this choice stemmed in large part from her unreadiness to differentiate herself from the family and strike out on her own. Her anxieties about taking a teaching career path were intensified by the fact that both teachers were “old maids,” thus confirming her fear that career and family were antithetical: to choose one was to lose the other.
The second turning point came at age 20, in the middle of the Early Adult Transition and the college years, when Jenny seriously questioned her relationship with Steve. This relationship, formed in high school, was a powerful link to her origins. It kept her on the proper matrimonial path and counterbalanced the potential in the college education to lead her to another path. Her basic conflict was not about the relationship with Steve; it was about what she wanted to do with herself and her life. After a few months’ tentative separation she returned to Steve, got formally engaged, and had a “graduation” wedding. Again, after a brief digression, she remained in the fold.
What other options had she been seeking and why did she give up so quickly? The courting relationship was formed within the Adolescent Life Structure. In the Early Adult Transition Jenny had a glimmering of hope for a different life. But she was also afraid that ending the relationship would separate her from the family of origin and its familiar world. And there was the fear, strongly reinforced by others, that the search for something better would be fruitless: she would fail to gain a better marriage and, worse, lose her one opportunity for a secure life and end up with nothing. It would take an adventurous spirit, indeed, or a person who found the traditional solution intolerable, to seek so chimerical an alternative.
The third struggle lasted from age 22 to 25. Jenny had a severe crisis, a rock bottom time, in the initial phase of the Entry Life Structure. The conflict between family and occupation was becoming more sharply defined. Married life went well enough while she could maintain the illusion that she might continue indefinitely as wife and teacher but not mother. With the pregnancy she realized finally that she would be a mother first of all. With luck, she might start a limited career in ten or fifteen years.
The realization was overwhelming. She was entering a life that might well be intolerable, and she could see no way either to improve it or to leave it. Her condition was diagnosed as a “postpartum depression.” In actuality, a depression of this kind is not simply about having a child. It can also be about the woman’s life, as she lives it in the present and imagines it in the future. Jenny felt “engulfed,” a member of “the club” of young mothers. She envied her single friends who were free to work and travel. At stake were her relationships with husband, child, extended family, friends, every key person and group in her life.
The inner struggle thus has to be seen in the context of her life structure development. The central component of her Entry Life Structure was homemaker in a Traditional Marriage Enterprise. This component supported various relationships consistent with homemaking and excluded virtually all others. Jenny had mixed feelings about everyone and everything included in this component, and she had a corroding sense of loss about the things that had to be excluded. The void she experienced was the absence of occupation, which included all the relationships and involvements that might be part of a flourishing career—intellectual stimulation, independence, travel, friendship.
Occupation was a central yet unfilled component. It was the vehicle for her vitality, her sense of excitement about adult life, her partially formed Dream of a career. Without it she felt empty and hemmed in. The internal Anti-Traditional Figure was drowning yet also struggling to survive. Jenny wanted in time to have a family and to maintain the ties with her origins, but her passion was in the occupation. Her depression stemmed from grief and anger over the loss of the occupational world and of the parts of her self that could not be lived out within a Traditional Marriage Enterprise.
We have two kinds of evidence that occupation was a central component. First, its absence was so painful. Second, and equally important, it had an inner presence that interpenetrated all the other components. It made her a “bitchy,” demanding wife who was never satisfied, since her husband could not give her what she most wanted. It distanced her to some degree from the child for whom she wished to be a loving mother. It alienated her from her own mother, who, despite the mutual affection between them, could not understand what was gnawing at her daughter’s heart. And it complicated the relationships with her friends and in-laws.
Family and occupation were central yet antithetical components of Jenny’s Entry Life Structure. Family was actively lived out, valued in many respects, yet also oppressive when it took all her energies. Occupation, the unfilled central component, ate away at what she had. In its initial phase, from 22 to 25, the Entry Life Structure became almost intolerable.
The third struggle was resolved in the Age 25 Shift. The brief “zooey” job as substitute teacher enabled Jenny to set aside her educational-occupational aspirations and to have a second child. Occupation was still an important unfilled component but its absence was more tolerable. The family component became more satisfying. With the arrival of her daughter she could be a more competent, loving mother. The improvement in Steve’s work and income allowed them to become more independent of parents. As the children grew beyond infancy, Steve got more involved in their care. The marital relationship did not become more intimate but they formed a more secure partnership in which each made a jointly valued contribution. She found ways to maximize the pleasurable aspects of motherhood, such as taking the kids to places that were educational for them and, equally important, stimulating for her. She learned to minimize the most deadening activities, such as household chores and small talk with the extended family. She felt like “Mother of the Year” and a good daughter, but much more on her own terms. The internal Anti-Traditional Figure had some breathing space and could be partially lived out. This figure came out of the internal closet, as it were, in the Age 30 Transition—a change that had enormous consequences for Jenny’s further life.
Five women were unmarried and without children as this period began. Elaine Olson, Claire Berman, Emily Swift, and Nan Krummel were single-never-married; Angela Capelli had just ended her first marriage. All of them had full-time jobs such as nurse, teacher, or typist, but none had long-term occupational goals. They planned to work until they could find the right man, marry, and start a family within a Traditional Marriage Enterprise. In short, they were homemakers whose domestic career had not yet begun.
In the initial phase work was not a central component of the Entry Life Structure. The young women were ready to drop it as soon as they could enter a Traditional Marriage Enterprise. At the same time, work occupied a major place and served important functions in their lives. It reduced their dependence on parents (although three continued to live with or near parents and to remain firmly within the family orbit). It enabled them to develop some degree of competence and to experience themselves as active participants in the public world. In this respect they were markedly different from the women in Patterns A and B, who led more narrowly domestic lives during this period. Finally, work provided the basis for a social life through which they sought to meet prospective husbands. The job was thus of considerable importance for them even though they were not trying to build an occupational future.
Marriage/family was the central yet unfilled component of the Entry Life Structure. The concern with matrimony had a pervasive presence in their lives. Expecting to become homemakers, they invested little of themselves in occupation. They made a sharp distinction between potentially matrimonial relationships with eligible serious men, and other kinds such as casual dates. All five women had understood in the Early Adult Transition that it was important to marry within a year or so of completing their schooling. Four had been involved in a marriage or serious courting relationship that ended in great disappointment at age 21 or 22—a bitter outcome of their matrimonial efforts. Angela Capelli at 22 was coming out of a painful three-year marriage and was cautious about remarriage. Elaine Olson terminated with her “prince” when he told her of his ex-wife and child. As Emily Swift graduated from college, she counted on marrying the medical student with whom she had been going steady, but he broke off the relationship. Claire Berman was the only one who did not have an intense courtship relationship in her Early Adult Transition. In the initial phase of the Entry Life Structure she had a variety of dating relationships but was still not emotionally ready to form a courting relationship.
From about 22 to 25 all five women had full-time jobs and were financially independent. They had an active social life, dated, and looked forward to matrimony. While keeping busy on many fronts, they were not heavily engaged in any activity and generally felt that “nothing important” was happening. They had a sense of being in limbo until the key event—marriage and motherhood—would bring them into full adulthood. They were waiting for “Mr. Right” to come along but were often not internally ready to meet him. The initial phase was spent in a state of suspended animation—not doing much exploring of the external world and not being very clear about what they wanted.
In the Age 25 Shift they felt an urgent need to fill the unfilled component and embark upon a domestic career. All five young women got married at age 25 to 28 and were pregnant within a year of marriage; one had a miscarriage and remained childless. During the second phase they were engaged primarily in courting, getting married, and starting a family. Soon after marrying, they gave up their jobs and decided to work in the future only when they had the time or the financial need.
In the second phase of the Entry Life Structure the single working women became full-time homemakers. The change in social roles and circumstances was quite dramatic. When we examine the change from the vantage point of the life structure, however, we see changes within a stable framework. Four of the five women succeeded in forming the life structure they had sought from the start of this period. Family was the central component throughout, but it was unfilled until the Age 25 Shift or soon after. Work served important functions in their lives but was never a central component of the Entry Life Structure. It enabled them to survive on a more independent basis for a time, but was readily given up once they established a Traditional Marriage Enterprise. The fifth woman, Emily Swift, got married at 27, had a miscarriage soon after, and ended this period on a note of disappointment. In short, all five women maintained the same life structure during this period, a structure in which family was the central component, work useful but expendable.
ANGELA CAPELLIAfter I divorced at 23 I lived with my parents and worked at my old typing job. I wanted to get married and become a mother. I dated one guy for a year and a half. We were going to get married but he broke up with me because his mother didn’t approve of his marrying a divorced woman. I was crushed. It hit me: I’m 25 and not a mother yet! I met with a priest about the issue of my divorce and my future as a wife and mother in terms of the Catholic Church. He gave me no hope. I could not remarry in the church! He made me feel that at 25 my life was over. All of a sudden I realized, “I’ll never be a mother. If I can’t get married I’ll never be a mother!”
Then I met Jerry. He was divorced, too, and wanted to remarry and start a family. I was not passionately in love with him. I thought he had money because he brought me out to dinner and to the movies. He didn’t push me to have sex before marriage, and that was okay with me. We got married when I was 27, and I got pregnant right away. I was thrilled! I was going to be a mother and stay home from work and have a family—that sounded nice to me. I had my son Bob at 27. He was colicky and cried all the time and was not my idea of a good baby.
The sexual relationship with my husband was not good from the start. Jerry was nonsexual and didn’t pay any attention to me. In those early years of marriage we had sex maybe once every two months, and it wasn’t the right way. He had problems. He couldn’t keep an erection long enough. He would look for his own satisfaction and leave me out in the cold. I never saw him. He worked, had supper, slept from 6 to 11 and went to his part-time job. We were poor and never had any money.
I got pregnant again as I turned 28. Then Jerry was sick and out of work for a year. We had no money and the bills kept coming in. I kept asking him, “How could you do this to me?” There was a fear that I might lose the baby unless I got complete bed rest. I left and went to live with my mother. She took care of the baby while I rested in bed. A few months after my second son, George, was born, Jerry got better and went back to work. I returned to our apartment with the children, who were only 11 months apart. I felt like my life was going to start up now.
CLAIRE BERMANI graduated from college at 22 and never returned home to live after graduation. You know, you get away for four years, you have a mind of your own by then. It probably would have been hard on me and hard on my folks for me to return. We were very close but we didn’t really talk. I never discussed anything with them about myself or my life or anything, ever. I was making my own money and living on my own. I wanted to be independent but not too far away from home. I lived in a town an hour away from my parents and went home a couple times a month.
I taught school for five years. Summers I was a camp counselor. At 23 I joined the temple and got active in the community and made friends and began dating. I had a good life; I really loved those years. I lived in a big house for a year with several other women teachers. That was a great year—we had parties and ate all our meals together. But then one by one they all got married and moved out.
At 25 I was dating Robert regularly and really liked him. I was also dating my future husband, Ben. Then Robert decided to move to another state. He asked me to go, too, and live with him. But this was not my philosophy in life. After he left I put all my eggs in one basket and just dated Ben.
I liked Ben. He was nice to be with and easygoing and didn’t put any demands on me to have sex. He was a really decent guy. I didn’t fall in love with Ben, but I liked him a lot. When I married him I would say I loved him—not crazy, head over heels kind of love, but I liked him very much. I thought he was a super guy. I thought I could have a very nice life with him. I liked his family very much, and I liked the way he was with my family. Our families and backgrounds were compatible. Ben was real formal when he proposed. He said, “Many girls won’t date me because I’m not a professional.” He told me he made a good salary working in his father’s insurance business and would be able to support me.
I married Ben at 26. My first sexual experience was when we got married. I was too chicken before. I just didn’t think I could handle it, to tell you the truth. Sex the first time was scary but not unpleasant, and I grew to enjoy it more.
I worked during the first year of marriage. Ben expected a very traditional marriage, expected me to make his breakfast and be home to make supper when he arrived home at 6 p.m. After several months of that I came to the conclusion that any idiot can make his own breakfast, and I stopped getting up with him in the morning. He’d leave for work early in the morning and get home late at night. He worked weekends and spent summers away at the reserves, so we didn’t see a lot of each other.
I went back to summer camp the first summer after we were married. My husband thought that was ridiculous. He said, “Go ahead this summer, but not anymore.” I understood; it was time to start a family, time to be serious. I stopped work at 27 with no regrets. We bought a house, and I spent most of my time fixing it up. I got involved in the local synagogue, and I had my son at 28. [Motherhood ushered in Claire Berman’s Age 30 Transition.]
ELAINE OLSONAfter I broke up with John at 22, I dated a lot. Friends would arrange blind dates for me but many of them were too fast. I went out with one guy who gave me a corsage and then tried to have sex! I tore off the corsage: “I didn’t ask for this, and I don’t expect to have to pay for it!” I dated Chuck at 23. I was real close to his family, and he was like a brother. But then we broke up. There was just nothing there, no marriage encounter or anything. Then I began dating Sal. I gave up two years of my life being his therapist. All he talked about was his ex-girlfriend and how he had loved her, and she had died. I pitied him. There was no one else right then so it was okay.
When I was 25 I began to realize: “What am I doing? I’m 25 years old, there’s no future with this guy. I would never want to marry him and have him the father of my children. He’s a nice guy but nothing you would leave home for.” So I ended the relationship. When we broke up he said, “You’re ready to get married, Elaine. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear in six months that you’re engaged.” And I was ready to marry, just not him.
I met Patrick at 26, and six months later I had my diamond. All my previous men were tall, handsome, and had big cars. Here was Patrick, five feet nine with glasses and a Ford, but I really liked him. He had a similar background, and my family liked him. He had worked his way up through the ranks at a local company and was now a manager. When I was 27 he was transferred to another state for a year, and we only saw each other occasional weekends. But that was okay—I was busy planning the wedding with my mother. Patrick and I got married when I was 28.
As this period ended, fourteen homemakers were in an intact first marriage, one in a second marriage. Fourteen were mothers (of one to five children). Several mothers had decided to have no more children, and the one childless woman hoped yet to become a mother. All fifteen had built an Entry Life Structure within a Traditional Marriage Enterprise, in which family was the central component, although there were variations in sequence. None of them were well prepared for the changes that lay ahead in the next period, of the Age 30 Transition.