FOURTH EDITION NORMAL FAMILY PROCESSES Growing Diversity and ComplexityCHAPTER 16 THE FAMILY LIFE CYCLE MONICA MCGOLDRICK TAZUKO SHIBUSAWA [Lp recently therapists and researchers paid litte attention to the family life cycle and its impact on human development (McGoldrick, Carter, & Garcia-Preto, 2011a). Most psychological theories have focused on the individual or, at most, on the nuclear family, ignoring the multigenerational context of family connections that pattern our lives over time. Yet a family life-cycle perspective is critical, because it enables clinicians to anticipate the furure development of individuals and families, including risks, which in turn facilitates prevention. It is helpful to consider all clinical assessment within a life-cycle framework, which offers a flexible concept of predictable life stages and acknowledges the emotional tasks of individuals and family members, depending on their structure, time of life, and cultural and historical era. The old nuclear family model is insufficient because, as Dilworth-Anderson, Bur- ton, and Johnson (1993) point out, “Important organizing, relational bond- ing of significant others, as well as socialization practices or socio-cultural premises are overlooked by researchers when the nuclear family structure is the unit of analysis” (p. 640). Since the 1960s and 1970s, social norms that dictate life patterns and time tables for life transitions have continued to weaken, eroding the tradi- tional model characterized by (1) the good provider role for men, (2) full-time homemaking on the part of women, and (3) universal marriage and child- bearing (Kohli, 2007). The emergence of heterogeneous life patterns and the waning of conventional, standardized, and predictable life trajectories have been referred to as the “deinstitutionalization” of the life course (Wrosch & Freund, 2001). It is becoming increasingly difficult to define what family life-cycle patterns are “normal,” adding stress for family members who have few models to to guide the passages they must negotiate. Furthermore, in our 375376 DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVES ON FAMILY FUNCTIONING. rapidly changing world, we need to recognize that life-cycle definitions and norms are relative, depending on the sociocultural context (McGoldrick et al., 2011a, 2011b; Falicov, 2011; Kliman & Madsen, 2011; Ashton, 2011; Hines, 2011; see McGoldrick & Ashton, Chapter 11, this volume). As the texture of life has become a more complicated fabric, research and therapeutic models must change to reflect this complexity, appreciating both the surrounding con- text as a shaping environment and the evolutionary factor of time on human development. THE FAMILY AS A SYSTEM MOVING THROUGH TIME Families comprise those who have a shared history and a shared future. They encompass the entire emotional system of at least three and frequently now four or even five generations, held together by blood, legal, and/or histori cal ties. Relationships with parents, siblings, and other family members go through transitions as they move along the life cycle. Boundaries shift, psy- chological distance among members changes, and roles within and between subsystems are constantly being redefined. It is extremely difficult, however, to think of the family as a whole because of the complexity involved. As a sys- tem moving through time, the family has basically different properties from all other systems. Families incorporate new members only by birth, adoption, commitment, or marriage, and members can leave only by death, if then. No other system is subject to these constraints. A business organization can fire members or, conversely, members can resign if the structure and values of the organizarion are not to their liking. In families, on the other hand, the pressures of membership with no exit available can, in the extreme, lead to psychosis. In nonfamily systems, the roles and functions of the system are car- ried out in a more or less stable way, by replacement of those who leave for any reason, and people move on into other organizations. Although families also have roles and functions, the main value in families is in the relation- ships, which are irreplaceable. If a parent leaves or dies, another person can be brought in to fill a parenting function, but this person can never replace the parent in his or her personal emotional aspects. While people often act as though they can choose membership and responsibility in a family, there is little choice about whom we are related to in the complex web of family ties. Children, for example, have no choice about being born into a system, nor do parents have a choice, once children are born, adopted, or fostered, as to the existence of the responsibilities of parenthood, even if they neglect these responsibilities. Even for committed partners, the freedom to choose whomever one wishes is a recent option, and the decision to marry is probably much less freely made than people usually recognize at the time. While partners can choose not to continue a marriage relationship, if they have children they remain coparents and the former marriage continuesThe Family Life Cycle 377 to be acknowledged with the designation “ex-spouse.” People cannot alter whom they are related to in the complex web of family ties over all the genera- tions. Obviously family members frequently act as if this were not so—they cut each other off because of conflicts, or because they claim to have “nothing in common”—-but when family members act as though family relationships are optional, they do so to the detriment of their own sense of identity and the richness of their emotional and social context. Despite the current, dominant American pattern of nuclear families liv- ing on their own and often at great geographical distance from extended fam- ily members, they are still emotional subsystems, reacting to past, present, and anticipated future relationships within the larger, multigenerational fam- ily system, The many options and decisions to be made can be confusing: whether and whom to marry; where to live; how many children to have, if any; how to conduct relationships within the immediate and extended family; and how to allocate family tasks. Cultural factors also play a major role in how families go through the life cycle. Not only do cultural groups vary greatly in their breakdown of family life-cycle stages and definitions of the tasks at cach stage, but it is clear that even several generations after immigration the family life-cycle patterns of groups differ markedly (Falicov, 2011; McGoldrick, Giordano, & Garcia- Preto, 2005). ‘The definition of “family” also differs according to cultures. For example, social support networks within the Black community serve as a vital buffer against a discriminating environment. Dilworth-Anderson et al. (1993) call for broadening ideas of what constitutes a family and its positive characteristics to allow for culturally relevant descriptions, explanations, and interpretations of the family. Families’ motion through the life cycle is profoundly influenced by the era in history at which they are living (Elder & Johnson, 2002). Family members’ worldviews, including their attitudes toward life-cycle transitions, are influ- enced by the times in which they grow up. Those who lived through the Great Depression, those who experienced the black migration to the North in the 1940s, those in the “Baby Boomer” generation who came of age during the Vietnam War, and in Generation X who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s—all these cohorts have profoundly different orientations to the meaning of life, influenced by the eras through which they have lived ‘We must also attend to the enormous anxiety generated by the chronic unremitting stresses of poverty and discrimination, especially as the economic and racial divide in our society widens. The traditional multigenerational extended family provided valuable mutual support and interconnectedness yet should not be romanticized, as it was supported by sexism, classism, racism, and heterosexism. In this traditional patriarchal family structure, respect for parents and obligations to care for elders were based on their control of the resources, reinforced by religious and secular sanctions against those who did not conform to the normative standards of the dominant group.378 DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVES ON FAMILY FUNCTIONING UNDERSTANDING THE LIFE CYCLE: THE INDIVIDUAL, FAMILY, AND CULTURE Families characteristically lack time perspective when they are having prob- lems. They may be stuck in the past or magnify the present moment, over- whelmed and immobilized by their immediate feelings; or they become fixed on a moment in the future that they cither long for or dread. They lose the awareness that life means continual motion from the past and into the future, with ongoing transformation of familial relationships. From a family life-cycle perspective, symptoms and dysfunction are examined within a systemic con- text and in relation to what the culture considers to be “normal” (i.e., expect~ able) functioning over time. From this perspective, therapeutic interventions aim at helping to reestablish the family’s own developmental momentum, so that it can proceed forward to foster each member's development, To understand how people evolve, we must examine their lives within the contexts of both the family and the larger culture, which change over time, Even within the diversity of family forms, there are some unifying principles we have used to define stages and tasks, such as the emotional disequilibrium generated by adding and losing family members during life’s many transitions {Ahrons, 2011; McGoldrick et al., 2011a). Each system (individual, family, and cultural) can be represented sche- matically (see Figure 16.1) along two time dimensions: One is historical (the vertical axis), and the other is developmental and unfolding (the horizontal axis). For the individual, che vertical axis includes the biological heritage and intricate programming of behaviors with one’s temperament, possible congen- ital disabilities, and genetic makeup. The horizontal axis relates to the individ- ual’s emotional, cognitive, physical, and interpersonal development over the lifespan within a specific sociohistorical context. Over time, an individual’s qualities can become either crystallized into rigid behaviors or elaborated into broader and more flexible repertoires. Certain individual stages may be more difficult to master, depending on one’s genetic endowment and environmental influences (see Spotts, Chapter 22, this volume.). At the family level the vertical axis includes the “family history,” the pat- terns of relating and functioning that are transmitted down the generations, primarily through the mechanism of emotional triangling (Bowen, 1978). It includes all the family attitudes, taboos, expectations, labels, and loaded issues with which we grow up. These aspects of our lives are the hand we are dealt. What we do with them is the question. The horizontal flow at a family level describes the family as it moves through time, coping with the changes and transitions of the family’s life cycle. This includes both the predictable devel- opmental stresses and those unpredictable events, “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” that may disrupt the life-cycle process—untimely death, birth of a handicapped child, chronic illness, job loss, and so forth. ‘At a sociocultural level, the vertical axis includes cultural and societal history; stereotypes; patterns of power, privilege, and oppression; socialVertical Stressors The Family Life Cycle Poverty/Polities, Racism, Sexism, Classism, Homo/BiTransphobla, Violence, Addictior Family Emotional Patterns, ‘Tangles, Secrets, Legacies, Genetic Abilities & Disabilities, Religious Boliefs & Practices Horizontal St Developmental Life Cycle Transition Unpredictable Untimely Death, Traum Accident, Chronic liness, Unemployment, Natural Disaster, Migration Historical, Econor Political Events War, Economic Depression, Political Climate, Disaster, Migration Myths, | Individual (Body, Mind, Spirit) Aged Ue Cyto tage 2 Biological Fsyhlogia actors ean Mena Heth unctoning. Abies or babies emperament Se Dect, Language Communication, dscns Behave stubs, Life Sk fection, Work, races Te) 2. Secours factors ace Ethie Sex Geer ident Sera OFertaton, Soca ls Educator, Wor, ances Rl, & Spa ‘Wes, Respect Nature, Ue Sresots Sense of lengig, Fay end & Community Connects: PomerPielegeoPonesessnes/Yulerbity Aggro interdependence fr Le Gl ramstances 4s ama 5-esorl Hopes Ard Deas 379 Socio-Cultural Context "india & Family say Having Sse of Baorang aly, ore Pac" A Eonvecen Comin, Plea, Retin nc Soca rps 4.Communty Secures, Pind ewer log/Oppesionnfestion Cute, ce, Css sgn, ge Sera eaten, ital & Esme Pove Fy Deter 8 ties Family (Immed. & Extended) ‘Lay ie ce tage 2 Fay Structure 3. fairl 8 elation Paes: Sourdaes Communion, Tangles, Sees Mts, ec, Theres Oates Stil Tes: Seng Ysa Dstncens 4, Sod Catal ats Racy, ti, Se, Gender deny &Senl Oentaton. Socal as Ect, Wi Fans Rela Spit Valaes, ‘UeSresors, eae of Belonging Fry, end & Graurity Connections PowerPiviege ot Powelene realty Soproprite Inserependence for ie Gre earns Soe Faame ues Seles als & races FIGURE 16.1. Multicontextual framework for assessing problems. From McGoldrick, Carter, and Garcia-Preto (2011a), The Expanded Family Life Cycle: Individual, Family, and Social Perspectives, 4th Edition, Copyright 2011. Printed and electroni- cally reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.380 DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVES ON FAMILY FUNCTIONING hierarchies; and beliefs that have been passed down through the generations. A group’s history and, in particular, its legacy of trauma influences families and individuals as they go through life (e.g., the Holocaust for Jews and Ger- mans; slavery for African Americans and colonizing, slave-owning groups; homophobic crimes for persons of diverse sexual orientation), The horizontal axis relates to community connections, current events, and social policies as they impact the family and the individual at a given time. It includes the con- sequences in people’s present lives of the society’s “inherited” (vertical) norms of racism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism, as well as ethnic and religious prejudices, as these are manifested in social, political, and economic struc: tures that limit the options of some and support the power of others. ANXIETY AND SYMPTOM DEVELOPMENT Over time, stress is often greatest at transition points from one stage to another in developmental process as families rebalance, redefine, and realign their relationships. Hadley, Jacob, Milliones, Caplan, and Spitz (1974) found that symptom onset correlated significantly with the normal family developmental process of addition and loss of family members (e.g., birth, marriage, divorce, remarriage, death, launching). The clinical method of Murray Bowen (1978) tracks patterns through the family life cycle over several generations, focusing especially on nodel events and transition points to understand dysfunction at the present moment. Emotional issues and developmental tasks not resolved at appropriate stages will likely be carried along as hindrances in future tran sitions and relationships (McGoldrick et al., 2011a). Given enough stress on the horizontal, developmental axis (sec Figure 16.1), any family can appear extremely dysfunctional. Even a small horizontal stress on a family whose ver- tical axis is full of intense stress will create great disruption in the system. The anxiety engendered where the vertical and horizontal axes converge, and the interaction of the various systems and how they work together to support or impede one another, are key determinants of how well the family will manage its transitions through life. It becomes imperative, therefore, to assess not only the dimensions of the current life-cycle stress but also their connections to family themes, and triangles coming down in the family over historical time. Although all normative change is to some degree stressful, when horizon- tal (developmental) stress intersects with vertical (transgenerational) stress, there tends to be a quantum leap in anxiety in the system. To give a global example, if one’s parents were basically pleased to be parents and haridled the job without too much anxiety, then the birth of the first child would produce just the normal stresses of a system expanding its boundaries. If, on the other hand, parenting were a loaded issue in the family of origin of one or both spouses, and has not been dealt with, the transition to parenthood might pro- duce heightened anxiety for the couple. Even without any outstanding family- of-origin issues, the inclusion of a child could potentially tax a system if there