Human Development Interview

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Molly O’Brien Human Growth and Development PSY 235 Paper 2: Due Oct 15, 2014 My Interview Stage 8: Integrity vs. Despair ages 65 to death Barbara is 90 years old. During World War II, she took two years of Russian in college and then attended Wellesley College where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and a bachelor’s degree in geography. Her goal was just to learn as much as she could. She had always wanted to be a geographer; her mother was a geographer and made documentaries. Her sister was a geographer and together, they were all big on travelling. Currently, Barbara is attending CU Boulder full-time. Her classes include two about China and one on the history of the British Empire. Barbara was raised by her biological parents in a…show more content…
She said her marriage was unusual for the time period because she was in her early 30’s. It seemed everyone was expected to get married immediately after high school or immediately after college. Barbara was engaged a couple times but called off the engagements. Once because of an over possessive mother of her fiancé. So she ended up marrying a widower that had lost his mother, wife and a son. They were all killed together in an auto accident. They were survived by the widower and his other sons aged 8, 6 and 2 ½. The marriage between Barbara and the widower produced two more boys. One of whom Barbara said she killed. Sadly, in a car accident. Barbara had been travelling with her college aged son and asked him if she could drive for a change of pace. She fell asleep at the wheel. Her son died and her leg was…show more content…
Most of her friends she has known growing up and college friends. She has kept in touch with them and their children and grandchildren. 70 years later she still has lunch once a week with someone she met in college. She considers herself a strong firm friend with lots of humor. She was happy I interviewed her because she was dying to tell someone and couldn’t tell her sons or friends that she cyberstalked the two men she had been engaged to. She found a lot of history about them and was excited to see they had done well in their lives. As for the priority in Barbara’s life, it is definitely being a Christian Scientist, as she has been all of her life. She only now uses one medicine for her heart but hasn’t used medicine or doctors much throughout her life as part of her religion. Her morals are based on everything in the bible. Her attitude about death and life after death is that is that death is not the end. We do go on. Although, she does not believe there is a heaven or hell. She gave an example that suicide is never a solution because you continue on with the same problems that need to be worked out. She coped with her son’s death knowing he moved on. She thinks people fear death because of their belief in heaven and hell. Church has always been her coping strategy. Her religion is very optimistic and love based. Her hobbies are music, she plays the piano, and organ, and reading, any kind of

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