When asked to describe my culture, I could tell you that I was raised in a typical middle-class suburb of the Midwestern United States. However, when I probe further it becomes apparent that I belong to a particular and distinct sub-culture. Religious beliefs, community interactions, and family ties combined for over a century to produce the specific niche which I inherited. This culture is largely responsible for who I am today, and although my experience is unique, I can relate many aspects of my life to descriptions provided by prominent developmental theorists. Here, I will describe several significant stages of my life with regard to my specific sub-culture, and offer insights connecting my experiences to selections from the developmental theories of Erik Erikson, Lev Vygotsky, Urie Bronfenbrenner, Viktor Frankl, and Lawrence Kohlberg.
What set my particular community apart from mainstream suburbia was our religious affiliation. We were Christian, which was not unusual, but our brand of Christianity was neither Catholic nor Protestant. We believed in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, an eighteenth-century scientist, philosopher and theologian who had a series of spiritual experiences in which he visited the spiritual world. He conversed with spirits, both good and evil, visited various regions of both heaven and hell, and wrote it all down in dozens of volumes. Several of the teachings taken from his writings include: the existence of a single, loving and merciful God whose primary goal is happiness for every human being; the importance of both understanding truth and doing good things; the concept that any person can go to heaven, regardless of religious affiliation, if he chooses to live a good life; and, many portions of the Bible are not to be taken literally, but rather viewed as powerful allegorical messages. The religion that emerged from Swedenborg's writings in nineteenth-century England called itself The New Church, which, although small in membership, eventually spread to the United States. Congregations sprouted in several locations, including a world headquarters in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, and my hometown of Glenview, Illinois.
When the first New Church members settled in Glenview in the 1890s, it was amidst farmland on the outskirts of Chicago. With visions of an intentional church community, they built their homes in a wide loop, surrounding a church and an elementary school. When the loop was named Park Drive, the community became affectionately known as “The Park.” As the years passed, a bustling suburban town grew up around the community. Rather than becoming integrated, The Park maintained an independence and self-sufficiency that kept it distinct from its surroundings. New Church members chose to live as neighbors, kept their families close, sent their children to the church school, and usually married within the church. By the time I was born in 1982, the result was a community where I knew everyone in the neighborhood, was related to a large number of them, and lived across the street from school and most of my friends, all under the common bonds of shared spiritual and moral beliefs. Because the New Church pervaded my family, school, and community life, it provided a framework for several levels of my development. As described by Urie Bronfenbrenner's ecological model, this included micro-, meso-, and exosystems (Gardiner & Kosmitzki, 2008).
My parents had both been born and raised here, as had their parents, and I, a third-generation resident of The Park, was so steeped in this culture that I didn't think to question it. I was the third child, born in the living room of the home where I lived until age sixteen. I had the security of loving and supportive friends and family, including two older sisters, and a definite sense of belonging. My mother stayed at home to raise us, and, being the youngest, I developed a strong attachment and reverence for her, my primary caretaker. From the perspective of Erik Erikson's theory of psychosocial development, I had faced the first crisis, Trust vs. Mistrust (Gardiner and Kosmitzki, 2008), and successfully developed a strong sense of trust in my caretakers and the world.
However, when I was two years old, my parents divorced. Although divorce was common in the wider culture, the New Church had strong teachings regarding the importance of marriage, and we became the only family in our school with divorced parents. My father continued to live at the residence where I had been born, while my mother lived in an apartment outside of the community. I spent equal time with both parents, and maintained positive relationships with each of them, but the dynamic of divorce set me apart from peers, fracturing my unquestioned sense of belonging, and introducing a sense that I was somehow different. Thus, I faced Erikson's crisis of Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt. Because my family deviated from the cultural norms, I internalized a sense of shame.
Fortunately, I had two strong and consistent allies in this situation—my two older sisters. From a young age, they had an immeasurable impact on me, providing me with novelty of all kinds. Thanks to them, I was more fashion-conscious, had more mature taste in music, and saw more R-rated movies than many of my friends. They also taught me to read at age four; my middle sister came home from Kindergarten to teach me, her student, what she had learned. From the perspective of social psychologist Lev Vygotsky, I owe them for activating my Zone of Proximal Development, allowing me to reach towards a higher level of development (Gardiner & Kosmitzki, 2008) in virtually all areas of my life—from reading material to dating advice.
As I grew older, I approached Erikson's crisis of Industry vs. Inferiority, particularly in regards to conformity. I became aware of the world outside my community, and aware that those of us who didn't attend public school were in the minority—in fact, I began to suspect we were fundamentally different. One example is my misunderstanding of the use of the term “the park;” it had always meant home to me, and it was in late childhood that I deciphered the more conventional meaning (a green space within a city or town, associated by most children as a play area). In facing this crisis, I took part in activities outside of The Park, including violin lessons, and a softball team. These helped me to develop a sense of personal competence to combat my fears of not measuring up to the standard of the world outside of my community.
Entering high school presented my first experience with mainstream public school, and it threw me into Erikson's crisis of Identity vs. Role Confusion. I no longer had an assuring sense of belonging; instead, I became ashamed of my background because it gave me a sense that I was different from everyone else. I did my best to conform to what I perceived was normal and socially acceptable. This included going to parties, experimenting with drugs and alcohol, and pushing the limits of my parents' rules. Although I expanded my social circle, I also damaged relationships with my family and friends, and sensed this lifestyle did not provide the answer to who I wanted to be.
When I finished tenth grade, my New Church culture offered me an alternative. One of the distinct rites of passage for teenagers in New Church communities included going to boarding school for grades eleven and twelve. Because Swedenborg emphasized understanding religion on an intellectual, as well as emotional, level (and perhaps because he was strongly intellectual himself), religious education was highly valued by New Church families. Several communities, including mine, had their own elementary schools, where we were taught the basics of our faith. As our intellectual capacities blossomed, we were offered the opportunity to explore the faith from a variety of perspectives, as it was integrated into all subjects at the Academy of the New Church in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. Along with a breathtaking Gothic-style cathedral, the Academy was the pride and joy of Bryn Athyn, the world headquarters of the New Church. This small secondary school attracted students from all over the country, most of whom had been raised in a New Church community like my own. After two years of feeling out of place at my large public high school, I opted to attend the Academy, and was accompanied by the majority of my close friends from The Park.
My decision to attend the Academy allowed me to embrace my heritage; instead of feeling different, I was again surrounded by peers who shared my background and beliefs. This safe community allowed me to resolve my confusion over my identity. Graduating from the Academy completed this rite of passage, marking my transition into the adult world.
In addition to academics, the Academy taught me to live my life with integrity. The New Church emphasizes the importance of performing useful services for oneself and others, and highlights the joy that comes as a natural consequence. Rather than doing what I thought I could get away with, I began to understand the value of doing the right thing for its own sake. Eventually, I found the rewards—peace of mind, a clear conscience, a sense of pride—to be much more desirable than the thrill of “getting away with” something. When considering Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development, I believe this phase of my life marks a shift from conventional morality to post-conventional morality (Gardiner & Kosmitzki, 2008). Rather than obeying rules to maintain the social order and avoid disapproval, I began to base my decision-making on my conception of what seemed the most useful and good.
Emanuel Swedenborg devoted a volume to the special love between married partners. He described the marriage of one man and one woman as “the precious jewel of human life” (Swedenborg, 1841). In my New Church culture, marriage was not only valued, but idealized, and presented another significant rite of passage. It was common for students at the Academy to become engaged shortly after graduation, to marry and start families soon thereafter. However, influences in my microsystem (Gardiner & Kosmitzki, 2008) gave me a different perspective. As we grew up, my mother exhorted my sisters and I to consider other options than simply becoming wives and mothers, citing her own disillusionment with this approach (she married at nineteen, had three children by age twenty-four, and divorced at age twenty-six). Having experienced the consequences of divorce, I took her message to heart, and spent several years focusing on my education and career aspirations. Thus, rather than approaching Erikson's crisis of Intimacy vs. Isolation typical of young adulthood by pursuing a relationship with a spouse, I put this on hold and focused my energy on finding my place in the world and making contributions to society. Erikson describes the latter as Generativity vs. Stagnation, which occurs during middle adulthood.
Similar to Viktor Frankl's assertion that meaning can be discovered through creative values, or “doing a deed” (Boeree, 2006), New Church values also stress the importance of performing useful services as the path to heavenly happiness. I believe that this emphasis also enhanced my eagerness to face the crisis of Generativity vs. Stagnation—that is, to find my place in the world, and to become a contributing member of society.
I met my husband, also raised in the New Church, during my junior year of college. By New Church standards, we took our time, dating for three years before we were ready to consider marriage. After we spent a year apart, while I moved away and established myself in a new job in a new town, I felt confident in my independence and secure in my identity—thus, ready to commit to marriage without the fear of losing myself (and disappointing my mother!). In facing Intimacy vs. Isolation, I suggested that my husband and I move somewhere new to establish ourselves outside the context of our New Church culture; I felt it would be easier to start somewhere new together, rather than try to integrate marriage into our well-established lives. Generativity vs. Stagnation also played largely into this desire, since I feared that I would be limited by cultural norms and expectations which would keep me from expressing my true self.
Since then, I believe I have continued to face both of these crises on ever-deepening levels; unlike Erikson, I believe the fundamental questions addressed by these crises do not represent a single event, but an ongoing process of development. A large part of establishing myself as an adult has included allowing distance from the New Church culture that had influenced my development so strongly. However, I believe that my upbringing has shaped who I am and what I value, and I take these with me wherever I go. Although they take different forms, my life today includes the spirituality, close connections with friends and family, and community that I experienced during my formative years.
Even though I have reached adulthood, I feel strongly that my development is not complete! This belief, too, is influenced by my New Church upbringing. Swedenborg referred to spiritual development as a process of “regeneration” in which we strive to shun evil and do good, with God's help (James, 2001). This process continues not only for a lifetime on earth, but for an eternity in the spiritual world. Similar to Frankl's theory, the New Church teaches that life is ultimately meaningful and spiritual in nature. Thus, I hope to continue to grow on all levels—intellectually, morally and spiritually—into old age and beyond.
Boeree, C.G. (2006). “Personality Theories: Viktor Frankl.” Accessed September 27, 2009 from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/frankl.html.
Gardiner, H.W. & Kosmitzki, C. (2008). Lives Across Cultures (4th ed.). Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.
James, L. (2001). “Swedenborg Glossary.” Accessed September 27, 2009 from http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/regen.html.
Swedenborg, E. (1841). The Delights of Wisdom Concerning Conjugial Love (2nd ed.). London: Walton & Mitchell.