Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Parenting And Adult Development: Contexts, Processes, And Products Of Intergenerational Relationships, Rob Palkovitz, Loren D. Marks, David W. Appleby, Erin K. Holmes

Faculty Publications

For the past 50 years, parenthood has been discussed in social science literature as a context of adult development. Theories, anecdotes, and the opinions of laypersons are nearly unanimous: People who become parents and are involved in the raising of children are transformed and follow a different developmental trajectory from people who do not engage in parenting roles. Erickson (1950) suggested that positive adult development reflects care for the next generation, or "generativity," and that parenthood is "the first, and for many, the prime generative encounter" (Erickson, 1964, p. 130). More recently, parenthood has been described as a necessary but …