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During stage 1 of Erikson's Development Timeline, the child will begin to learn how to depend on the one(s) who will be caring for them. They will look to them for food, clothing, shelter and comfort. I asked my mom if she felt like I trusted her to do these things for me. She said I was pretty good at this stage trusting her and if I was hurt I learned really quickly that "mommies kisses fixed everything."

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In this stage of Erickson's Development the child is beginning to develop a sense of being able to do things on their own. When I asked my mom about this, she told me that I came out of the womb thinking I was independent. She said by the time I was one, I would help her dress me but by the time I hit 2 I would tell her "no, mommy I do it." This was funny to hear this time. This is something that she has told me before but putting it with the timeline made it super funny to me.

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In this play stage of years 3-6, Erickson said that the child will take the lead with activities and can blame themselves if the outcome proves to be unsuccessful. I asked me mom about this stage as it pertains to me. She said that it was a hard one to describe because I was the child that took the lead and didn't care if there was a negative consequences or not.

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Erikson's Psychosocial stage 4 suggest that the child will develop a form of inferiority when their self-confidence is broken. My mom said that for her I was very confident. She said that my confidence was such that grown people felt extremely comfortable in talking to me. She said it would frustrate her because she could not understand why adults would tell their personal business to a child. She said I should have been a reported because I am able to get any and everything out of people without even trying.

Based off of this I would have to say that at this age, I can remember giving my friends advice about how to handle life. For example, I remember telling one of my friends how to handle the fact that they found out that their dad was leaving for another family. I was extremely confident in what I was telling her and in my eyes I was competent in my understanding of what that meant and what I was telling her was sound advice. However, when my great grandmother (who I was very close to) passed away, I felt inferior because I couldn't give me nor my family any advice to help us through losing her.

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This is Erikson's 5th stage. The adolescence years 12-18 is where children will experiment with who they are and what they want to be. This is also where the confusion of who they are, who they want to be and or who others want them to be.

For me, I didn't even ask my mom about these years because she and I didn't have the best relationship at this point so she did not know who I was at all. When I think about this stage and line it up with my life then, I have to say that yes, this is spot on. I thought I knew who I was but I found that who I thought I was, was not good enough for me or anyone else. I spent years trying to find where I fit in. I also spent years trying out being different people. Through those years, I have to honestly say that I never found out who I was during that time either. So I ended this stage just as confused as I entered it.

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In Early Adulthood, Erikson says that between 19-29 you will define intimacy and create relationships with others. For me I fell in love but the love was hurtful and what some may consider toxic. I then found what I thought was love and it was definitely toxic and then let love finally find me. In all of this time I developed strong relationships with many people. Some of these very people I have lost but none the less they were some phenomenal people who I am blessed to have had them in my life.

When looking at these latter years, I realized that interviewing my mom to tell me how I was in these areas at these ages was pointless because she could not tell me how I was. My main memory from these years is when I met my oldest son's father. I thought that we would have an okay relationship even though I knew it was not going to be for a lifetime. We stayed together not as long as I thought but in losing our son I realized that this would be our end. I went on a spiral hill downward and thought that love was not something that I would have or could have at this particular time. This caused me to go into what Erikson called isolation. I didn't trust anyone and didn't want to meet anyone new. But, I am glad that Erikson felt that it is in this stage that intimacy would come into factor! Coming to the end of this stage of my life is when everything started to make sense.

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Here we are! I'm in my prime and I am PROUD to be. Here is where Erikson introduces middle age. This is the point where he said that we are able to make contributions to society and becoming a part of family.

This rings true for me in both generativity and stagnation. By this I mean, I have made several contributions to society and I have grown my family in this stage. I would use as an example that when I worked at a high school here in the city as a paraprofessional. In this, I added to me being a family person by me and my husband adopting 3 of my students at that time who were in not so great living situations. Coming up and through what I did to this point helped me to be able to do this. Being the family person that I am allowed my husband and I do add to our family of 6 (4 kids plus me and him) to a family of 9 (7 kids plus us). I would have it no other way!

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In Erikson's final stage of development, he says that a person is able to take the sum total of their life, finding meaning and making it all make sense.  Personally, I am not there yet as it pertains to age being that I'm still in the middle age stage.

If I have to try to guess what it would look like for my experience in making it all make sense once I get to the old age stage, I hope to get there successfully. Somedays I feel like I can go on for another 50 years and put all the pieces of my life's puzzle together finally displaying the masterpiece of my life totality.

Coming back to school to get my credentials in teaching and FINALLY graduating college is a sure fire way that I am showing that I'm on track to fulfill this stage. I pray I am alive long enough to see and operate in all of my dreams before leaving here.