ABSTRACT
Life course events do not just happen. We make choices within an ever-changing socio-legal structure. Life course is a unified whole, from birth to death. We are born into a social location, with its hierarchy of values, from which we internalise our own. In social interaction we develop our ‘take-into-account-abilities’: our human capital. Family, as our initial social location, is often studied as a ‘primary group’, using role theory. However, each family member also moves in his/her own education, work and leisure cycles which are considered major life events. Using individuals as units of analysis, much social research has focused on the self and ‘self-esteem’, rather than on the ‘we’ element in society. To the degree that we are unaware of how our life cycle engagements impinge on the lives of others, we may be less likely to implement cooperative ‘we’ values and ‘The Golden Rule’ – Do to others as you would have them do to you – in our relationships. This chapter’s goal is to build a frame of reference that focuses on life cycle specification as a conceptual tool for understanding family dynamics. Family, however defined, is a building block of society and large part of everyday life. The better we understand it, the better we can create relevant socio-legal structures to support health and well-being for all, as we share the impact of new life course events.
