VIII.Generativity One: Raising Children and Engaging Projects

In this brief vignette, the interviewer had insightfully captured the essence of generativity in both members of this couple. They both loved to host other people and demonstrate their shared commitment and expertise in providing a richly sensuous environment in which to live and work. They had created “the good life” by surrounding themselves with their own art work and architectural design, and by creating an environment that reflected their common tastes as well as the individual tastes.

Much as a shared interest in architecture, design and visual beauty provided the basis for Larry and Harold’s mutual project, music and a love of Poland had kept Mick and Sheila’s relationship alive during the past twenty years. As a defector from Poland during the late nineteen seventies, Mick had a deep, abiding interest in the culture and political liberation of Poland. Sheila shared this interest. Having been raised by first generation Polish parents, Sheila and Mick met as performers at a House of Poland social gathering. They still played together at House of Poland events, and they sang together during evenings in their home where Mick had built a recording studio.

Mick and Sheila produced their own recordings and gave or sold them at their performances. Their songs were all written by Mick, while Sheila assisted with vocal arrangements. They loved being able to perform in their own home studio because their home itself had taken on special significance for them. They had bought their home five years ago, and it was in miserable condition. They renovated the house themselves and built their studio into their home. Their interviewer noted that every detail of their home reflected their unique tastes and their love for one another and their music. Clearly, for Mick and Sheila, Poland, music and home are the three children they have raised and are still nurturing. Each of these children required considerable effort and one of them (Poland) went through its own adolescence during the last decades of the 20^th Century. Mick and Sheila worry a great deal about its future prospects and hope someday soon to be able to travel back to their beloved Poland.