It's A Movie!
“Everything...moving like in a slow-motion film. Shit that stank, stank more. Anything sweet seemed even sweeter” (Sister Soulja, p. 19). The slow-motion is the individual lived-experiences directed by instinctual behavior. But, who would've envisioned that life is a movie and you are the star! Scene 1 your stage of development, which is the plot we call birth. Ok, the preview is exciting and the audience (your family) wants more. Scene 2, childhoods it's adventurous and all that is being learned with family and friends is at home, the playground, and kindergarten. Scene 3, adolescence, O, Boy, it's getting better! My emotions, hormones and what they call the “ID” is out of control. One is alone and afraid, and the movie scenes called “time” will not slow down. The roller-coaster ride is my life decision and each turn spins me around-and-around until it finally stops at adulthood, what, now I got to play this out til the two end! In search of answers and understanding of “movie” psychology calls it the “Stages of Human Development, which is to help the audience (and me) make sense of human complexities and behavior, not!
The stage of human development that is most studied is between the ages of 12-25 years old. “...it is the hardest stage for one’s life. There are too many drastic life changes like physical, psychological, and behavioral changes going on in one’s life. It is easy...to get lost on their way in searching for the adult world by making mistakes.” Yet, when life changes include parenthood it is the hardest. Young adults with children depend on what was learned in their stages of human development to help guide them through their “time” called lived experiences. Their behaviors are interpersonal experiences in childhood with parents, service providers (counselors, doctors, teachers), and intimate partners that give meaning and understanding to their stories called “life.”
Young adults with child(ren)’s stories are written through the lens of their own lived-experiences, but interpreted in slow-motion heightening instincts exacerbated by drastic life changes. The disconnect and vulnerability from communal relationships increase risks (e.g.,. hunger, homelessness, abuse) that move in slow-motion, the stillness, and triggers of post-traumatic stress. The need to search for help or a connection to meet a need and to heal from the history of abuse and abandonment.
The voices of young adults with child(ren) aging out of foster care is that of their past carried into the future. The “movie” being directed and filmed is that of an interdependent community. A stage of actors in a safe haven for the voiceless and underrepresented seeking attention, recognition and applause for a movie only “real actors” can portray!
