Martin has been trying to get me to read this one for a long time because he thought it would help me get a better understanding of the various stages of life that I have, am, and will face over time.

In some ways, I am really glad that he suggested it. I could really see my various developmental stages in my adult life to date. Sheehy proposes that we experience a series of passages, or life changing events, that help us progress through adult personality development. They are not necessarily good or bad, but they change who we are at the core. She also suggests that while they may reflect each decade of life, we all progress through these passages at different rates.

It starts as we find independence from home and parents, finds possible partners anf a self-definition. The thing is that definition changes to meet our own personal needs at the time.

The strength of the book is the underlying theory of the passages and their effect on us. At the same time, I had a lot of trouble getting through the book because I had a lot of trouble relating to most of the specific cases provided to exemplify the passages. It is not that I think they were bad examples, but they reflect how the book is a bit out of date for my generation.

This is mostly because of Sheehy's focus on gender definitions for men and women and how they define an individual's development. The book was originally published the year I was born, 1976. The people in her study were about a generation before mine. I know that my parents faced different gender definitions and parenting techniques that I was raised with.

This doesn't mean that I think what Sheehy presents is wrong, but it is trapped in the time period in which the book was originally published and written. In some ways, that affects her theory about how the passages work, though, I do think the core works.

I did take a look at New Passages, which is a book that looks at the idea of passages on society as a whole rather than the individual. It was published in 1995. I had hoped that it was more of an updated edition that would make the cases reflective of that time period while still focusing on her theories about passages, but that does not seem to be the case.

I don't want you to think that I didn't like the book or didn't connect with what she had to say because I did. I just didn't feel the same level of connection that I thought I would if it had been rewritten to reflect more modern times.

I do want to thank Martin for having me read it. It got me thinking about things and my own life in relation to how I have changed over the years because of my own personal experiences with passages.

While I couldn't get the direct connection with the theory as it was presented, I did do a lot of thinking about how the theory could be applied to me and how it might reflect my furture development as I continue to be confronted with the passages identified by Sheehy.

I can see why this has become such a classic.