8 Middle Adulthood 207Marshall (2004) found that the loss of both parents is a “two-staged tran-
sition” because adult children often are caring for the surviving parent after
the first death. When the second parent dies, the adult child grieves for both
losses more fully. In her study of midlife women, Dare (2011) found that the
death of one parent places extra demands on women as they often carry the
caregiving responsibility for the widowed parent. Women bear not only physi-
cal and emotional caregiving responsibilities for a surviving parent, but often
shoulder financial responsibilities as well (Dare, 2011). After the surviving par-
ent dies, they may grieve the parents and the role they filled as caregiver.
The relationship with parents is usually life-long and influential. Adult
children are aware of parental characteristics that live on in them, and grieve
the security (or its absence) provided for them by that parent. After parents’
deaths, adult children often grieve for their deceased parents and for their loss
of the child role (Hooyman & Kramer, 2006). Many bereaved adults are sur-
prised to feel like “orphans” despite being in midlife.
Although the loss of parents during this phase is common, it is a major
life transition and involves facing the eventuality of one’s own aging and
death. (This experience is illustrated in the vignette of Barbara with which this
chapter began. As she thought about her mortality she began to worry that she
might die from cancer.) When parents die, the psychological barrier between
midlife adulthood and death is removed as one ascends the generational lad-
der. The loss of parents in midlife increases the adult child’s awareness of
time left to live and can provoke reassessment of priorities and new sense of
responsibility to self and others (Umberson, 2003). As midlife adults move up
the generational ladder, they often begin to see themselves as keepers of tradi-
tions and memories to be passed down through generations.
Parental death can also inspire spiritual awakening. Spirituality can be
an antidote to the abandonment midlife adults may experience when parents
die. “Healthy spirituality is inviting, meeting us where we are, as we are, not
where others are” (Gilbert, 2006, p. 10) and can help heal wounds from unre-
solved issues with one’s parents. This sense of abandonment may also lead
the bereaved to deepen relationships with other family members or partners.
Death of an Adult Child
During midlife, the death of a child—most often a young adult or teen—is
unexpected, traumatic, and can have long-term effects on parents’ lives
(Rogers, Floyd, Seltzer, Mallick, Greenberg, & Hong, 2008). Rogers et al. (2008)
compared results of nonbereaved and bereaved parents from a longitudinal
study and found the bereaved parents to have poorer health, more depressive
symptoms and they were more likely to have experienced marital disruption
and a major depressive episode in midlife (Rogers et al., 2008). Better outcomes
after a child’s death were associated with re-establishing purpose in life and
having other children (a form of legacy, of course).
In response to the death of an adult son in the Israeli army, some par-
ents decide to have another child (Hamama-Raz, Rosenfeld, & Buchbinder,
2010). Although this contradicts practice wisdom, these parents were found
to actively cope in ways that seemed adaptive for them. The research found
three dominant themes in the parents’ explanations: (a) “From the place where
pain and sadness was sown, a new smile was grown,” which captures the way