The mature men and women that Sarah serves in her institute have no doubt often asked themselves the same kind of questions. Like the president of their training institute, these middle-aged men and women are inevitably in crisis, because they have chosen to return for a certificate or degree at a much later point in life than is usually the case. These are not your typical young women and men, fresh out of high school or college. They are experienced adults, who want to enrich and renew their understanding of the world, while also getting a certificate or credential. This interest is quite understandable and very commendable. Yet, families, friends and colleagues often do not understand why they went for further training: “Hasn’t she already had enough education?” “Why doesn’t he just settle down and take things a bit easier?” “What is she doing starting a second career this late in life?”
There are certain times in our lives that our society deems appropriate for us to explore alternative careers and personal identities. Erik Erikson (1980) describes these periods of time as “psycho-social moratoria.” Most of us are given a moratorium during our late teens and early twenties. Young men, in particular, are given the opportunity to explore new realities through the military if they are from the lower or lower-middle class or college if they are from the upper-middle or upper class.
Among young women, in most societies, only those from the middle and upper classes have been granted a moratorium. They become college students. Women from less secure financial backgrounds have typically never experienced a moratorium. They usually move directly from their family of origin to marriage. They immediately establish their own families and assume major homemaking responsibilities, as well as often work at least part time to help with the family’s precarious finances.
Other people in many societies are also denied a moratorium. They may have been assigned their identity early in their life. Perhaps their father and grandfather were doctors, so this young man or woman will also be a doctor. Alternatively, the young person has spent their entire life fighting for survival as the child of an unemployed or even homeless parent. This person will never experience a moratorium, but instead probably spend most of her life as an unemployed adult living in one of the world’s slums. The exploration of alternative identities has been foreclosed for both the predestined physician and child of poverty.
In certain societies, there is a powerful (and painful) norm practised in many families. Who is more qualified to make a decision regarding the career of a 17-year-old son? Of course, the successful 45-year-old mature father who has ‘seen it all’. When the job market is so promising, with possibilities in finance, why would you not prepare your son to be an accountant? When the family had a tradition of over 400 years of sending the older son to the military, how could this father break it? “Who do you think I built this business for–and from scratch? Of course, for you, my son!” “The daughter’s ‘duty’ is looking after members of the in-law’s family, so the earlier we marry her off, the better. Our society is not safe enough for a woman to work anyway.”
There is often a dramatic intrusion of alternative identities later in life among those middle class and upper middle-class women and men whose identity was foreclosed early in life and among those who never experienced a moratorium during their adolescent years. These women and men often rebel as mature adults—if their society allows rebellion. Their inner voices assert themselves in strong and compelling ways. We see this played out in Jack Nicholson’s film portrayal of an identity-foreclosed man in Five Easy Pieces. Nicholson’s character rebels, having grown up in a musical family, without viable career options. He marries a woman without “culture” and takes a temporary job on an oil rig. Nicholson plays a man who faces a midlife crisis because he knows of no identity other than that of classical musician. His only option is to assume what Erikson calls the “negative identity.” The Nicholson character will randomly assume any identity as long as it is unrelated to serious music, He can be a day labourer, a logger or even a piano player in a local dive. It only matters that he reacts against the identity assigned to him by his family and society.
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