Middle Ground

Youth

Shrieking from deep within

Silent eyes dryly stare

Through benevolent adversaries

Who never quite understood

The impetus that is you.
                              -Me

-written by me as a 21-year-old high school teacher as I sat quietly with one of “my” adolescent rebels through an after-school detention

Undeniably, there is a psychology of humans in the middle that we have experienced or encountered in conversations or popular media: the middle child syndrome, feeling overlooked and slighted as the one who is neither the baby nor the oldest; the teenager in between childhood and adulthood, understanding more than a child while growing into an adult body, not ready for adult responsibility and not understanding that adult perspective has not yet arrived; the middle manager, discontent with incomplete authority and insufficient recognition or pay in spite of experience or education; the middle-aged adult with the potential of a midlife crisis, on the verge, perhaps of becoming wise, but struggling to come to terms with the of brevity of life, particularly one’s own life. 

We as humans seem to struggle a bit with not having quite arrived at wherever it is we think we’re headed or whatever it is we think we want. Being in transition puts us on edge, often pushing people away or pulling people too close, feeling smothered and lonely at the same time; who amongst us likes limbo or would claim that we want to feel stuck in the middle of . . . well, of anything? Often, nothing seems fair in the middle, especially where we're concerned as we view those who are the bookends to our middle.

While I, personally, am not anticipating midlife to throw any new psychological pitches at me, I think my own opinion on the matter of midlife is less reliable than research, observation, and the experience of many others. Times of limbo are notorious for distorting perspectives, so my anticipations of what life may soon hold for me developmentally are probably as off-base as a 13-year-old explaining how he/she will develop during the upcoming seven years.

I do think it is interesting that the majority of GenXers who completed questionnaires for me suspect that we will experience midlife differently than previous generations. While there is no research I am aware of to support that such a theory is playing out, I would not be surprised if each generation’s midlife years are colored uniquely by their generational personality and the societal forces around them; after all, such is the case of teenage years and early adult years. 

How much, though, is the basic psychology of midlife affected by generational experiences?

Before I’m ready to attempt to answer at that, I want to share an interesting theory on generational cycles, the idea that, throughout human history, a cycle of four generation types has recurred over and over again in the same pattern. It’s interesting stuff that I’ll save for another day.

Question: Do any of you LIKE being in the middle? Actually, I kind of do . . . many roles I've held over the years have required me to stand in the middle of different people/groups/opinions, to hear and attempt to understand all, to act as a kind of conduit. I haven't studied personality types. To those of you who have, is there a personality type that is particularly drawn to such in-between situations?

This blog post is part of a series of writing (April 3-May 14, 2011) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland about Generation X facing midlife.   tbergland.blogspot.com