Niloufar Sobhanian
Life analysis term paper
When I asked my mother about what it was like when she was pregnant with me, she
explained that she was about 23 years old. My father and my mother had a hard time making
ends meet in Iran. Therefore, she did not have a balanced diet filled with the essential nutrients.
She did exercise because in Iran back then, not many people had cars. She would walk to the
grocery store, which was approximately a mile away. She also cared for my brother who was
about 2 at that time which was typically physically demanding.
After about 5 months into my mother’s pregnancy, she came down with a serious flu. She
had to take pills that were dangerous for me, but the doctor gave her no other choice than to take
these pills. This caused her a great amount of stress because she was worried about what might
happen to me. In 1995, medicine in Iran was not as advanced; therefore they did not know the
exact outcome of how the pills were going to affect me. She cried while taking the pills, just
praying that I would be fine because she did not have any other choice. Thankfully, I came out
completely healthy.
Infancy and toddlerhood: My mother explained to me that when I was an infant, I had severe
separation anxiety. My father worked every day from 6 am to 10 pm, and which is considered
the norm in Iran. My mother stayed home to watch my brother and I. Therefore, I was never put
into the day care and was not used to being separated from my mother. One time, my mother had
to have our neighbors watch me and she explained that I cried for approximately 3 hours straight.
Now that I have learned about the concepts of parenting, it explains why I had such great
separation anxiety. In fact, it seems to be completely normal. My mother had a Proximal
Parenting style. The only times that I was laid down was to sleep. Sometimes my mother would
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just hold me and allow me to sleep in her arms or sat down on the floor, grabbed a pillow,
positioned the pillow on top of her feet, and I was laid on her legs, this method allowed her to
rock me by moving her legs slowly from side to side until I fell asleep.
During my toddler years, I demonstrated a great deal of social learning. As I watched my
mother cook, I mirrored her techniques with my own set of toy Tupperware. While my brother
would play with his toy cars, I would also mimic him by playing the same games that he played,
even making the same facial expressions and making the same sound effects that he tried to
make with his toy cars, such as police sirens, fire trucks, etc. It was obvious that I had a goodness
of fit with my mother. We were and to this day are a lot similar and are able to get along very
well. She explained how it was very easy for us to be in synchrony, I figured that this was
because we spent a lot of time with each other and I would demonstrate social referencing, by
looking at her reactions to things, I expressed the same reactions, therefore, this would explain
why we would be in synch in numerous occasions.
Early Childhood: In my early childhood years, I was into gymnastics. My gross motor skills
and dexterity improved every day and soon, I was able to go hiking with my family for hours. I
was a very active child and could run fast. I was very curious about my surroundings and kept
wondering the how things work and the reason why it worked this way. I questioned everything,
such as “Why does dad have to leave early to work and come home late at night” and displayed
perseveration with my questions until I gained some sort of an understanding. I was always
eager to learn.
I enjoyed coloring and being creative. I did display egocentrism, thinking that my way of
thoughts were the only way by ignoring my brother’s reasoning for why he liked certain sports or
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foods that I did not particularly enjoy. Early childhood was the time when I started focusing on
my appearance. Analyzing how other girls did their hair and I wanted mine to be “trendy” as
well. I was picky with my clothes, the color and style. I also demonstrated the fourth
characteristic of preoperational thought, which is irreversibility; I refused to eat a sandwich that
had onions put in it, even if the onion was taken out, I still refused to eat it because my sandwich
was “stained” with the onions.
Vygotsky’s term apprentice in thinking was evident in my early childhood because I viewed my
parents and grandparents as my mentors. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and my
grandfather would tell me stories of his younger days and offered me great amount of “words of
wisdom” to live by. He also taught me how to play chess. He explained several strategies but
also challenged my ability of making the right moves by myself, he encouraged me when I
played well and made suggestions when my moves were not the best ones.
Middle and Late Childhood:
When we came to the United States, I was put into the 3rd grade, therefore I was 8 years old. In
Iran, I learned to write and read Farsi very well. My parents both had to work all the time in
order to support my brother and I after leaving our entire life behind in another country. I was
usually alone in the house right after school along with my brother who was assigned to look
after me because he was 4 years older; however, he mostly ended up doing his own thing, which
I didn’t mind because as kids, we didn’t get along so well. I learned to cook for myself, wash
dishes, clean the house and do my homework. From an early on, I’ve learned to manage my time
effectively and formed concrete operational thoughts. This helped me develop a great
foundation for the responsibilities that came as I gotten older. I also had other “responsibilities”
as well, such as translating for my parents and even filling out job applications. I had to grow up
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more quickly than my peers, however, now I realize that I actually had a head start on knowing
how to be responsible for myself.
It was hard to be social in 3rd grade throughout 5th grade, simply because I could not relate to
anyone. They were brought up with games like dodge ball; I was brought up with soccer. My
classmates and I did not have much in common. Due to the cultural differences and my language
barrier, it was hard to interact with others and truly get to know them. I was irritated most of the
time because the kids spoke slowly and loudly to make me understand, as if that made any
difference. It did not; except, it only made me feel inferior to them.
During my middle childhood years, I had to learn to adapt to a new environment and learn a new
language from scratch. I had to form a whole new knowledge base in order to understand my
surroundings. During this intense learning stage, I compared and contrasted the way I thought
when I was back home and processed new information every day. While having to learn English
and do well in school, I used metacognition to “think about how to think” in English. I also had
to make sure that the stuff that I had learned would be stored in my long term memory, therefore,
I thought of ways that I could essentially relate everything I had learned and this stimulated my
metamemory.
Adolescence: Although I am still in the adolescence stage, when I was about 13, I. I had always
known that school was important, but I dreaded going because it started too early and my body
had a difficult time waking up. During puberty, my biorhythm was severely altered. I hated this
because I knew that I was a responsible person but I felt like I was being lazy for wanting to skip
school. I did not have many difficulties with my body image, therefore I cannot relate to what the
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text refers to fully; however, during my early adolescence, that is when I started dressing
“stylish” and coming out of that “tom-boy” stage.
The hypothetical thought is what I can relate to most in my adolescence stage. As previously
mentioned during my middle child stage, I had always been a curious child. During adolescence,
I have developed formal operational thought which allows me to use logic as well as thinking
outside the box, in order to solve various problems that I had faced. This also allowed me to
think of possibilities that I had never been able to consider before. Formal operational thought
was useful when I was in my junior year of high school. I was the vice-president of Math
Engineering Science Achievements (MESA) and a huge project that we had to do was to design
and build a prosthetic arm. In order to do so, I had to understand the mechanics of a prosthetic
arm and how it usually functions. Based on that understanding, I had to think “outside the box”
in order to be creative with my design.
During adolescence, and even now, I do seem to have an invincibility fable sort of mindset. I
drive over the speed limit, considered skydiving and go to the gym at a time where there are not
many people around, so therefore it can be viewed as dangerous. I always seem to think “no, it
won’t happen to ME.” After reading about this, I have reconsidered my choices that can be
viewed as risky and have listed the consequences. This has been helpful because it has prevented
me from putting myself in risky situations. I don’t drive too much over the speed limit because I
know that as a college student, I cannot afford to get pulled over. I have ruled out skydiving
because I know that I will have a heart attack before I jump out of the plane. I have been
managing my time so I don’t have to go to the gym at 11 o’clock at night. As I am slowly
coming out of the adolescence stage, I am more aware of that I am sadly not “invincible”
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Early adulthood: Although I am two years away from being in the stage of early adulthood,
after reading the chapter about emerging adulthood, I have a pretty good idea of how my
emerging adulthood will be like. Because I am into exercising and am trying to develop a healthy
diet, I infer that my early adulthood will be a “smooth” time for me. I am currently in school,
wanting to major in biology and pre-med. By the time that I am 23, I expect myself to be done
with my bachelors and my pre-med pre-requisites.
I have never been someone to do something just because it is what everyone else is doing. I have
been taught to be an individual and to differentiate what is right from wrong. The Social norm
approach suggests that many emerging adults may use alcohol solely because their peers are
doing the same thing. I expect myself to remain content with my lifestyle and to abstain from the
use of alcohol or drugs of any kind.
After finding out about my genetic disease, I know that as an adult, I have to have various
mammograms scheduled because breast cancer and other types of cancer such as leukemia and
ovarian has been passed down from generations to generations from my mother’s side of the
family. I am also aware that exercising can reduce my chances; therefore, I will keep up on my
medical exams and will stay in great shape.
During adulthood, is when I expect to finally meet someone and start a family. I don’t believe in
cohabiting, therefore I am sticking with the traditional way: have a career, meet someone, get
married, and have kids (two is plenty) I hope that things work out this way. By the time that I am
30, I expect to be graduated from medical school, have obtained my doctorates degree (M.D) and
to finally practice a career that I had always wanted to pursue ever since I was only a child.
During this time, I also expect to have a house, have various savings accounts (retirement, pay
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for my kids’ college, emergencies, vacation) and of course, working towards paying off graduate
school’s tuition.
Middle adulthood: Based on reading the text, I infer that I will go through senescence during
my 40s. The process of aging actually begins by age 20. By reading the text, I now know what to
expect and things I can do to try to slow down this process. For my skin, I can put sun screen on
now, so my skin will not be severely wrinkled in the future. Aging is a natural process, but some
things can be preventable; such as by taking eye vitamins, it will help my vision in the future. I
also know to not to listen to my music too loudly because it can cause presbycusis, loss of
hearing.
In my 40s and 50s, I will still be physically active, exercising at least 3 times a day. I will also be
eating a balanced, healthy diet. My family will also be an active family; I plan to have hiking
“family time” every weekend when the weather allows it. At this time, my kids will be planning
to go to college; therefore the money that I had saved/invested for them during my early
adulthood should help them achieve their career goals. During this stage, I should be an expert in
my career field. I may collaborate with other doctors to research towards the advancement of
medicine.
I have heard about the mid-life crisis, from seeing people during this age, I believe this to be very
real. At this time, I would like the chance to travel the world and go on cruises with my
significant other. After decades of hard work, it would be time to finally go and explore the
world. I also hope to form social convoys and have huge family and friends gathering around for
various holidays. I would like to have huge family gatherings because growing up and moving to
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this country isolated the family; my aunts, uncles and family friends stayed overseas. Therefore,
holidays were very small and not really acknowledged in my family.
Late adulthood: At this time, I am ready to retire. In my 65’s, I hope to still be somewhat active
and I want to live a healthy life for as long as I live. My house should be paid off and in my will,
my belongings will go to my children. I do not want to be dependent on anyone nor have my
children take care of me when I go through secondary aging, becoming ill.
I hope to be a grandmother during my late adulthood and look after my grandchildren while my
kids go to work. I will read story books to them and educate them about the things that I had
learned. I will share my life story with them and offer them words of wisdom. By cooking them
delicious food, I can gather them around and share my life review with them and at this stage of
life; I will finally be able to have an understanding of what the purpose of my life is and will
truly have obtained self-actualization.
Death is inevitable and I believe it is a beautiful part of life. Once someone has fulfilled their
“purpose” here, a purpose that is completely subjective to individuals’ perspectives, it is time to
say goodbye to this world. After filling out the life expectancy form, I am expected to live until
the age of 75. I believe that this is life span is plenty. When the time comes, I would like to die in
a meaningful way, preferably when I am helping someone. An alternative way that I would like
to go is to die peacefully in my sleep.