This document discusses factors that contribute to life choices and describes three key events in the author's life. The factors include psychosocial developmental stages and faith stages. As a teenager, the author had a child and experienced role confusion due to a lack of support. In her early 20s, she got married while still seeking her identity. At age 28, she went to college and experienced a stage of critical thinking that allowed her to examine her previously held beliefs. Understanding psychosocial and faith development stages provides insight into how life events and choices are experienced.

1. That Changes Everything
What factors contribute to the life
choices people make? Why?
Factors that contribute to the life choices people make,
include: Psychosocial developmental stages and faith
stages

2. A trip through 3 events in my life

3. I had my first child by the age of
17
– IDENTITY V ROLE CONFUSION
Didn’t know who I was, where I stood as a person
Lack of support resulted in role confusion
-FOWLER STAGE 2-Mythical-literal stage
Accepted the beliefs and traditions I grew up with, instead of thinking
for myself.
Was forced to go to church, caused a blind acceptance without questions.

4. Getting married-21 years old
• Intimacy v Isolation
• Was still trying to find my
Identity-but unwilling to veer toward
Isolation, so instead strove for
Intimacy
• Synthetic-
Conventional
Faith
-still held the faith of my
Childhood, without
Really knowing why I
Believed what I did,
not realizing that was an ideology

5. Began College: age 28
• Intimacy v Isolation stage
• Going back to school with goals in mind, mentally prepared to seek
and understand the information being taught
• Ready to “face the fear of ego loss in situations which call for self
abandon” (263).
• Less likely to make impulsive decisions in regards to career
Fowler Stage 4-
Individuative-
reflective Faith
• Critical thinking
allowed for serious
reflection over my
previous conformity
• Began critically
examining all
previous beliefs and
demythologizing
them

6. In conclusion…
• All of these events were life changing for me, though at
the times I had no knowledge of the stages I was going
through, steps I was taking. For me, children and
marriage became my normal (a wonderful normal!) but
they dominated my life in a way I almost didn’t know
who I was (beliefs, identity beyond being a mother etc.).
College was the catastrophic life changing event that
has helped change that. I have separated myself from
passive views on almost everything to front and center,
actively seeking information and finding out where I
stand with it. I am finding out who I am and where my
interests lie, and better yet, I am passing on that critical
thinking to my children, teaching them what I some how
missed as a child, to think for themselves and to gain
passion for what they feel strongly about, and
furthermore, to act on that passion. Knowing the life
stages, whether Erikson’s, Fowlers, or the many more
is critical to further understanding why and how one
experiences life events and choices.