292 Grief and Loss Across the Lifespan
Many people experience disenfranchised maturational loss when
expected developmental achievements are not met. For example, a significant
percentage of the current generation of emerging adults has not been able
to establish independent households. We view this delay of developmental
achievement as a form of maturational (and disenfranchised) loss. These two
categories of maturational loss—loss due to new developmental milestones
attained and loss due to nonattainment of expected achievements—both cause
a low level of sadness and irritation that can be managed better if recognized
as sequelae of a loss.
One of the first losses due to new developmental milestones attained is the
loss of the safe uterine environment from which all humans are thrust without
intent or control (something Otto Rank wrote of in 1929 in The Trauma of Birth).
As infants age, they lose the total, unconditional care of their parent/s. Most
children then move to school environments where they are judged, sometimes
for the first time in their lives. None of these are viewed as losses requiring
support from others, yet they do seem to entail experiences of (unrecognized
and disenfranchised) loss.
Other maturational losses may be recognized, but are disenfranchised
nonetheless. For example, young adults who transition from depending on
their family of origin for support to independent living seldom have support
for the losses they experience as they create a new life. In young adulthood,
the loss of a romantic relationship is often not validated by friends and family,
who see young adults as having many more opportunities for relationships in
the future. Young adults often grieve silently (if sometimes sullenly) as those
around them do not understand the depth of their sadness.
Adults who become parents often do not recognize the loss their relation-
ship endures. A new child demands energy and attention the couple used to
give each other. The birth of a child is in most cases a happy event, and is nor-
matively defined as such. As a result, family, friends, and perhaps the couple
themselves are unable to anticipate and then recognize the sadness and grief
they may experience as they “lose” each other. Alternatively, when a woman
suffers a miscarriage, friends and family often say “Don’t worry, there proba-
bly was something wrong with it” or “You’ll have many opportunities to have
other children,” thereby disenfranchising the loss and indicating that support
is unnecessary.
Loss of employment is also seldom validated as a loss, yet as decades
of research shows, this can be experienced as a severe loss, particularly in
midlife when it interferes with the basic developmental task of generativity
and is therefore a maturational loss of the second type: nonattainment of an
expected developmental achievement. Further, no societal ritual recognizes
this loss or provides a socially sanctioned time for grieving and recovery.
This is complicated by expectations that unemployed adults be continuously
motivated and efficient in seeking new employment at a time when they feel
a sense of shame and self-doubt. The reading in Chapter 8 by Kudu captures
some of the ways the disenfranchised maturational loss of job transition can
affect self-concepts.
At some point, adults may choose to move from the home they created
earlier. For some, this move may be liberating, even joyous because they are