As this interview began Max shared an anecdote, “a man went to the doctor and after testing, the doctor said, ‘the doctor asked, ‘why do you think you have a superiority complex’, to which the patient replied, ‘on the first day I created heaven and earth’!” Humor is a part of Max’s confident, intelligent and happy personality
Family Life Cycle
Duvall’s broad categorization of the family life cycle is a breakdown of the time partners spend becoming parents, rearing and launching children, becoming “empty-nesters” and facing old age (Broderick & Blewitt, 2015, p. 500).
This cycle provides an excellent framework from which to introduce the male subject of this interview. Max (pseudonym) is an 81 year old male, married once (Carol) with five children. …show more content…
In 1958-59 he met and married Carol and five years later welcomed their first child. The couple raised two natural and three adopted children and Max excelled in his career with the Internal Revenue Service. He retired at 49-1/2 and enjoyed a second career in programming and teaching. Launching their youngest child twenty three years later, Max and his wife emptied their nest, welcomed grandchildren approximately ten years later and maintain their interests, family relationships and couple hood. The time variances of this family’s experience in comparison to Duvall’s model e.g.; a longer phase without children and an earlier retirement, do not negate the evidence of the systematic progression and accomplishment at each