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Family Legacies
participant extended the family legacy of “working hard, playing hard” by modeling this legacy
within her new family, participants who were not married had difficultly extending family
legacies. Because of the participants represented the youngest generation in the family, we found
that family members in this study extended fewer legacies than they embraced or rejected.
Although this would likely change as family members grow older and likely have interactions
with younger generations, one method emerging adults found for extending family legacies at
this point in their life was moving outside the family to others such as friends, other students, and
co-workers.
Another facet of extending legacies was that some individuals did not actively try to
extend a legacy; instead actions spoke louder than words. Simply put, some individuals extended
legacies by way of example rather than through stories. The following participant struggled to
tell a story about how he/she has extended their family legacies, but instead indicated that he/she
tries to lead by example:
I: OK let’s talk about how you have extended these legacies or passed them down, or
added to them. Tell me a story about that…
P: OK….um I don’t know that I can think of a specific instance that I have passed them
on…..a specific story……
I: So you can’t think of a specific story to tell me?
P: Yeah….ummmmm…but I know that I try and emulate these in my everyday actions.
Thus, some participants viewed enacting a legacy as a way to indirectly extend their family
legacies to outside members. Another participant described a specific instance which illustrated
leading be example:
I have extended the “lend a helping hand” mostly through example. My fiancée and I
have friends that never understood that concept that you lend a helping hand and people
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