6 Emerging Adults 147Accompanying this challenge, parents and emerging adults may have
given mixed signals about the degree of adult responsibility and readiness
for independence that has been achieved, and a parental death before these
issues are clarified can leave emerging adult children uncertain as to their
status as fully functioning adults. Prior to a death, communication by par-
ents to emerging adults about their developmental status may take the form
of indicating new responsibilities. Research indicates parents hold emerging
adults newly responsible for finances (“When my first credit card bill came in
the mail, my mom handed the bill right to me and walked away” [Jablonski
& Martino, 2013, p. 8]), as well as responsible to the family (driving siblings,
etc.), yet most do not expect full-fledged self-sufficiency. Although parents
communicate awareness of emerging adults’ more mature status via such
actions (Jablonski & Martino, 2013), they do not seem to expect emerging
adults to operate without the safety net of the family of origin. The death of
a parent is thus not only an emotional loss but an untimely threat to mate-
rial security.
Bagnoli (2003) explored loss narratives with a sample of ten individuals
ages 16 to 26 and found that death losses involved a reassessment of identity, a
key developmental feature of emerging adulthood. Many of her interviewees
reported internalization of qualities of the deceased parent, with a clear sense
of accepting a new aspect of identity and experiencing resulting comfort. She
frames this within Markus and Nurius’s (1986) “possible selves” concept and
speculates that the deceased parent provided a template for a possible self.
This mirrors findings that continuing the bond with parents/loved ones via
sensing them as role model, sensing their situation-specific guidance (help
with a decision), utilizing the value-set of the deceased and/or internalizing
the memory of the deceased are all ways of creating the inner-representation
of a deceased parent (Marwit & Klass, 1996)
Because “emerging adult” is a new category of analysis, much of the rel-
evant literature comes from earlier studies of youth and late adolescence, yet
even this literature is surprisingly quiet about the death of a parent. Newton
(2012) explored the coping and support needs of emerging adults after the
death of a parent, noting that most emerging adults still rely heavily on
their parents for financial, instrumental (concrete help with chores/needs),
and emotional supports. She found that most reported coping with paren-
tal loss by throwing themselves back into school or work quickly, yet she
observed as well that “old coping mechanisms were not quite enough” (p.
48). Her respondents reported coping through exercise, strengthened reli-
gious affiliations, yoga and talking with others. Respondents whose parent
had died more than 5 years previously were considerably farther through
their grief than those who had experienced the death more recently. Many of
the latter still felt that the loss profoundly shaped life in the present. Despite
that, none of the 10 participants relied heavily on the surviving parent or
family of origin as their primary support, which as Newton observes, fits
with the developmental need to become more independent of their families
of origin.
Carlos (2014) suggests that therapists working with emerging adults who
are parentally bereaved may find useful Worden’s Four Tasks of Mourning.
She advises close attention to issues of termination and helping emerging