Phillip Wyatt
Dr. Rose
Thesis Paper
Theories Applied to Parenthood
The movie Parenthood has many different people at many different stages of their life.
They range from the earliest stages of life all the way to the elderly. Starting with the young
people we have Justin Buckman. According to Erickson’s theory he is in the play age. He is a
little boy and enjoys the little things in life. He is a free spirit and loves running his head into
other people’s stomachs or just into a wall. His family is the most important thing to him and this
is clearly defined when he thinks that his sister is being attacked and is off to the rescue. This
behavior also puts him in Piaget’s preoperational stage of cognitive development because he sees
things from his point of view. Cool Buckman is another very young character that is in
Erickson’s play age stage of development. He shows this by his young nature and how he
presents himself. He starts the movie by not obeying his father to stay outside before he came to
get him. He also shows guilt when his father is leaving even though it has nothing at all to do
with him. Age wise according to Piaget he is in the preoperational stage of development, but his
character is not showed conveying any of the characteristics that define this stage in
development. Patty Huffner is also a young character that falls in Erickson’s play age stage of
development although because of her father she is not really being allowed to act like it. She is a
little girl and does appear to be just like all of them until she starts to tell you the answer to some
impossible mathematical equation. She is also according to age in Piaget’s preoperational stage
of development. She does not have any characteristics that would place her in this category
because her father is making her a little adult. Next is Taylor Buckman. She is a typical little
girl. She is also in Piaget’s preoperational stage of development. This can be contributed to her
playful nature. Also because of her play like attitude she can be placed in Erickson’s “play age”.
This is clearly seen when she puts the beard that is part of her costume on her little brother that
crashes the play. Kevin Buckman is at the “school age” stage of development according to
Erickson’s theory. There are a few things in his behavioral patterns that show this. First he is
very worried about what the outside world has to say about him. For instance when he drops the
ball he looks sad, but you can tell by his body language that it gets much worse for him when his
teammates start to show him ridicule. The next big thing that shows he is in this particular stage
of development is that the school is taking an interest in his social and physical actions that don’t
seem to fit the norm. The school even has a psychiatrist evaluate him due to their great concern.
It is \told to his father that this problem will not just go away. This focus on him at this age is
probable linked to the thought of Erickson that this is the most crucial point in the child’s life as
far as self esteem goes. According to Piaget he is in the concrete stage of development. He
clearly is able to look at a situation and gather some reason from it. He even shows this by asking
why he is in therapy. He first thinks that it is a bad thing. His father explains to him that this is
only because he worries a lot for his age, and that it is not because he has anything wrong with
him. He then explains what he thinks it all means to his father, and his father concurs leaving
him with a complete understanding of this situation. The next character that is looked at is Gary
Buckman. Gary is a troubled kid and seems to be going through what a lot of teenagers are going
through as far as trying to figure out why he is starting to get certain feelings for the opposite of
sex. According to Erickson he is in the adolescence stage of development. This is clearly seen
through his actions. He has a combination lock on his door to give himself a since of security of
his privacy and a feeling of becoming an adult or an individual. He is very secretive and doesn’t
feel as though he needs to tell his mother anything that he is doing or anything for that matter. He
also has an extremely dirty room that is a sign of not feeling like he has any duties. According to
Piaget he is in the formal operations stage of development. This is seen in his independence and
basically doing what he thinks is best for him. Julie Buckman is the first character that we
consider that is a young adult. This would put her in Erickson’s young adulthood stage of
development. She shows this in many different ways. First she is very attached to her boyfriend
Todd and will do a lot to stay with him. She values his affection and likes the idea of being in
love with him. She is pregnant at a relatively young age and seems to be content with having the
child and starting a family of her own. She is very concerned with what Todd does as want to
make sure that she keeps his companionship. She goes to the extreme to marry him which shows
her want for that serious relationship. She thinks that she feels the emotion of love for him and is
very emotionally attached to him. She is in Piaget’s formal operations stage of development.
This is seen through her reasoning skills and need to have a long term plan for her and Todd.
Todd is a free spirited young adult who is king of a go with the flow type of guy. He also fits into
Erickson’s young adulthood stage of development. This is also in part for the affection that he
shows to his girlfriend Julie. He says at one point in the movie that he loves her. This is a direct
example of his desired to have an intimate relationship. He expresses his own ideas, and is his
own individual. He marries Julie which is a direct sign of him being in young adulthood. He is in
Piaget’s formal operations stage of development. He makes his own decisions and is his own
person as a direct result. Larry Buckman is one of the odd characters out. He technically is
supposed to be in the young adulthood stage of development, but acts more like he is still in his
adolescence. He doesn’t feel the need to take responsibility for his own actions. He thinks that
his family is supposed to take care of him in good and bad times alike. He seems to have no urge
to have a serious relationship like a marriage, and probably couldn’t stay in one if he did. He acts
like a big kid. He has his own fantasy world that he must live in because he is a dreamer and
thinks that he is going to come up with a idea to get rich without a job. He doesn’t look at the
long term affects of his decisions obviously because he gambled away more money than he
owned then borrowed money to play it back and lost all that too. He is also supposed to be in
Piaget’s formal operations stage of development. This doesn’t seem to fit him either due to his
concrete thought process. The next character we will look at is Susan Buckman. She is an older
young adult. She fits into Erickson’s young adulthood stage of development. This is seen in that
she is a married woman and she has a family. She wants to be in a loving relationship and is mad
at her husband because he is more worried about making their daughter a baby genius than being
there for her. She just wants to be in a mutually satisfying relationship. She fits into Piaget’s
formal operations stage of development. She shows this by making up the flash cards because
she knows that is the only way to get a hold of her husband’s attention for a minute. Nathan
Huffner is a young adult that is also on the older end. He fits into the young adulthood stage of
Erickson’s development. This is due to the fact that he has a marriage and a family. He loves
being a father to the extreme. Where he doesn’t fit in is he doesn’t at first seem to care about
having an equal loving relationship with his wife. He is very bossy and rude to her, making the
decisions for the two of them, rather than making a joint decision like healthy couples do. He is
in Piaget’s formal operations stage of development. He coveys this by finding ways for his
daughter to learn, and making most of the learning materials for her. Helen Buckner is the single
mom that falls in the middle adulthood stage of Erickson’s development. She loves her kids, but
has a really hard time with them. She is defiantly in charge of herself and acts as an independent
female. She tries very hard to keep her family together. She wants to just have a part in their life
and to feel needed. She has had many major life changes and is seeking some clarity. She fits
into Piaget’s formal operations stage of development and shows this by trying to solve her
family’s problems. She tries to work through these problems and try to find a solution. Frank
Buckman is an older man that fits into Erickson’s late adulthood stage of development. He is old
and seems to be content with the fact that he is late in life. He looks back on his life and is not
completely happy with all the things he has done especially with his family. He is mainly
concerned about himself at first and is a stubborn old man. He is in Piaget’s formal operations
stage of development and this is showed by his ability to change his thought process and become
more of a softy. Marilyn Buckman is the wife of Frank and is relatively quite in the whole
movie. According to age she is in Erickson’s late adulthood stage of development. She doesn’t
really show any characteristics that convey this mainly because of her short role. She does show
a matriarchal type presence in her body language. She also is in the formal operations stage of
development according to Piaget’s theory. Lastly Grandma is the oldest cast member and is most
definitely in Erickson’s late adulthood stage of development. She talks about cherished times in
her life and you can tell she values those memories. She looks back on all the times in her life
and that is where she gains her wisdom. She doesn’t say a lot, but most of what she says is
meaningful. She fits into Piaget’s formal operations stage of development according to her age.
In the movie the role of Patty Huffiner and her father Nathan have great similarity to the
Montessori’s Educational Philosophy. In the movie the father playing the role of the teacher is
teaching his daughter in a very similar way to the Montessori schools. He has the same related
idea that children have the ability to learn things, especially language, at a better rate than do
older people. He uses it in an overly obsessive way. His daughter Patty is maybe four years old
and he is cramming her with information and making her regurgitate it back to him on a daily
basis. Where he doesn’t fit into the Montessori way is that he is not in a classroom setting. He is
also no prepping his daughter for life experiences or parenting. According to Gesell’s
Maturational Theory he is starting her off way to young any way. Gesell didn’t even think that it
was good to try to get the child to read before the age or six and a half. Arnold Gesell, a
psychologist, pediatrician, and educator in the 1940s, was very interested in child development.
From his numerous observations of children, Gesell formulated a theory known as maturation.
This theory stated that developmental changes in a child's body or behavior are a result of the
aging process rather than from learning, injury, illness, or some other life experience. Gesell's
idea of maturation was rooted in the biological, physiological, and evolutionary sciences. As a
result, Gesell centered most of his theory on the power of biological forces, which he felt
provided momentum for development to occur. Gesell and his contemporaries proposed that
development follows an orderly sequence and that the biological and evolutionary history of the
species decides the order of this sequence. Maturation supports the idea that each child's unique
genetic and biological makeup determines the rate of development regardless of other potential
environmental influences. Nathan doesn’t even take in to consideration that his daughter may be
book smart, but according to Gesell in other words she will have no common since. He doesn’t
even want to leave her with her uncle Gill when he goes on vacation because he is afraid that he
will set her back. Gesell does agree that some children are better equipped for the learning
process that others. What he doesn’t realize is that him separating his daughter from all things
except education could be setting her back. According to Vygotsky’s Social-Historical Theory of
Cognitive Development the fact that she has not been socially active has not allowed her to learn.
Vygotsky is much different from the Montessori field of though in that they feel like the child
interaction in learning is the most important thing. The student is essentially teaching
themselves. Vygotsky focused on the connections between people and the sociocultural context
in which they act and interact in shared experiences. According to Vygotsky, humans use tools
that develop from a culture, such as speech and writing, to mediate their social environments.
Initially children develop these tools to serve solely as social functions, ways to communicate
needs. Vygotsky believed that the internalization of these tools led to higher thinking skills. So
according to that Nathan could have been setting his daughter Patty back all along. In fact her
mother makes reference to the fact that she does not know how to interact with other children.
When she was around other children she didn’t relate to them because her brain had been
focusing on education not socialization. Bandura’s Social Learning theory is also supportive of
this. Bandura believed in “reciprocal determinism”, that is, the world and a person’s behavior
cause each other, while behaviorism essentially states that one’s environment causes one’s
behavior. So basically by not allowing his daughter to socialize these two theories believe that
there is a void in her cognitive development that is not filled.
As has been said before Larry Buckman is the odd man out. He doesn’t even fit into
Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development. Larry doesn’t show any remorse in trying to sell his
Dad’s car to save his own butt. This doesn’t tie into the theory because this is the same as
stealing, and according to the theory he should know better. If he could have sold the car without
the title he would have without question. He even makes it worse by trying to lie to his father and
try to connive him out of the title. According to this theory he should feel some type of guilt or at
least be strait up about it in the first place. The theory doesn’t completely fit because in the
theories case they are talking about an individual saving a loved one. In this case is Larry trying
to save himself not someone else. He doesn’t steal the car, but he would have if he could have.