The family life cycle in sexuality

Throughout each individual life, each individual goes through life cycles. These life cycles begin from the time that an individual is born, up until an individual is deceased. In each stage that one may encounter, that particular individual faces many challenges emotionally as well as intellectually. Not each stage is a breeze for individual’s due to hardships such as financial obligations, severe illnesses and so on.

Five stages to consider when observing the family life cycle in sexuality is single adulthood, committed and/or long-term relationships, becoming parents, termination of relationships, and older adulthood. With all five stages, there are challenges that may come along and shift the way that an individual may feel and/or how they may perceive someone else. Two common sexually related transitions that will be discussed will be parenthood and termination of relationships. When it comes to parenthood, a main cause that could cause sexually related transitions could be either negative or positive. Some negatives to parenthood could be unplanned pregnancies, stress and so on. Unplanned pregnancies sometimes lead to abortions.

According to Robinson (2007), the causes of abortions are for personal reasons such as financial resources, not ready to take responsibility, future career goals may have to get put on hold, the relationship with their significant other may not be so perfect, not mature enough, already have a big family with lack of support, and so on. Another concern to parenthood could be known as stress. Stress during pregnancies can cause many harmful things and/or situations not only to the mother whose pregnant, but it could also cause harm to the fetus as well.

According to Stewart (2018), too much stress could a pregnant mother to have sleepless nights, headaches, loss of appetite and/or she might eat too much. All of these characteristics are harmful to a mother who actually want to have a family compared to one who does not. Health problems that one might could consider when experiencing high stress levels could be high blood pressure and heart disease. Experiencing such could result in a premature baby or a low birthweight baby. Positive to parenthood could be maturity, responsibilities and role modeling. When it comes to maturity, though an individual may still be in the process of growing and learning, having children is a big step up because one might feel that they have little ones looking up to them. Therefore, the individual matures in order to set a good example for the child.

Responsibilities allows the child(ren) to recognize all the hard work and dedication that have been implemented into the family as a whole. Lastly, role modeling is something that children leans and grow on. They take what they have been taught and uses it in their everyday life. These characteristics not only benefit the mother, but it also benefits the child. When it comes to both the positive and negatives of parenthood, it displays ways in which an individual relationship might continue. For example, if parenthood is planned by both spouses, it could make the relationship stronger and if the negatives of parenthood fall into place, it could be the ending of a relationship. This leads to the second common related transition is a family cycle: termination.

Termination in the family life cycle can be because of many causes. These causes could consist of the unplanned pregnancies, financial problems, divorce, and the decease of a loved one. When it comes to the decease of a loved one, the sexual drive of an individual could decrease and/or increase or some may not experience those feelings at all. A mother who has had an abortion may also perceive her sexual preferences differently also. A woman going through menopause may have a decline in sexual activity that could be because of health problems, aging and etc.

As a professional, counseling would be a great way to assist clients who are going through both the termination stage in a life cycle as well as the parenthood stage. For couples who are looking forward to parenthood, counseling would be great for simply providing the couple with information, goals, and plans on how to manage money, staying on the right path, benefits that one might be eligible for and so on. For couples experiencing unplanned parenthood and are experiencing the negative effects of parenthood could use the counseling as well. When it comes to the termination of the family life cyle, whether it’s the ending of a relationship, and. or the decease of a love one, one experiencing health related problems and so on, it is always good to be a listener to one who might be grieving the loss of a loved one. Encouraging and motivation is a great process that one might not need in times such as these.