by Jennie Mc Donald

Created on: February 11, 2009

The life course is a journey through time, which every individual must travel. Some are struck down in the process and die. It takes one from birth to death, constantly requiring skills and knowledge along the way. We begin our journey totally dependant on others; mainly our parents. Form this we progress to school and education, acquiring friends and enemies on our journey. We begin to learn right form wrong, and behaviors which are acceptable and which are not. Through adolescence we experiment, normally without thinking of the consequences, and we begin to find ourselves, our own individual identity. This is through friends and family. Each step we take prepares us for the next; finally we become responsible adults, taking responsibility for our actions. By this point we pursue our chosen career, and begin raising families of our own, guiding our children to the best of our knowledge, through the socialisation process which we have just passed. Because of generation gaps, much may have changed, we now find ourselves in the authoritive position. As we guide our children we watch them in the hope that as they grow and mature they become good people.

By the time our children become authoritive and hopefully have children of their own, we ourselves are slowly returning to the first stages of the life course. We eventually, once again, become dependant on those around us, and slowly unlearn what we once knew, as our memories slip away. As our memories fade, time finds our end, and we pass away peacefully. Therefore, we pass through the greatest learning experience from twenty to thirty, followed by guiding our children through theirs (30-60 years), and eventually we watch the two courses together as our children guide their own (60-90 years). From living the experience to guiding people through it, and eventually watching the two together, we mature with knowledge, only to return to our original state of ignorance, and finally it is over, hopefully with the knowledge of success.

Society has created many steps in the lifecourse, it has organised the human experience accord to age. The life course begins as birth and the childhood stage continues till the age of twelve. Today childhood is considered the best time in one's life, a time when one is completely dependant on others but enjoys the freedom from the adult world. It is not so long ago that this was not the case. Many children did not receive the opportunity to be educated, and most who did left school at

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