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DEVELOPMENTAL CRISIS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A ...

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Claire – Interview 2 guide<br />

Pre-crisis<br />

• Did you dream of what you wanted to be or do when you were a child? What about<br />

as a teenager?<br />

• Going into the business world,<br />

“It was about proving who was the strongest, its not about proving who is the wisest<br />

or the most considerate. Doing something that produces the required results no<br />

matter what the sacrifice to other people may or may not be, it’s not what I would call<br />

doing one’s best. It’s thuggery, beautifully groomed thuggery but nonetheless<br />

thuggery. I found that very tough, but I developed an artificial, hard-nosed personality<br />

as a result.”<br />

Why did you do it? Was it really only to pay for your children? There are lots of other ways to<br />

work. Were you hoping for success / prestige / praise?<br />

• Do you think that towards the end of the career in your twenties, when you were<br />

looking to leave your job and go back to spending time with your children. You said:<br />

“I felt exhausted. I felt lonely, depressed, when I gave myself time to think about<br />

it….Working 18-20 hours a day, and any free time I had was with the kids. The first<br />

period I held down two jobs, because I had no financial support from the children’s<br />

father. Um, and it was very, very tough. “<br />

• Did you feel that there was no way out of this intense work life?<br />

• Do you think that period before the marriage was a mini-crisis in itself?<br />

• How do you think it relates to the marital crisis? Did one feed into the other?<br />

Marriage<br />

• When you started the marriage, and were spending more time at home, did it feel like<br />

you were making up for lost time?<br />

• You mentioned that when working you had to develop a “hard-nosed, masculine”<br />

façade. Did you find that when you left work, and went to be a mum at home, that<br />

façade left? Are you sure?<br />

Gender<br />

• How did this affect your sense of femininity, of being a woman?<br />

Persona and Gender<br />

• You talked about being “on show” all the time?<br />

• “your home is on show, your children are on show, and you’re on show.”<br />

• “The house was immaculate, the flowers were immaculate, the children were<br />

immaculate, you name it, I did it.”<br />

• Why was everything on show all the time?<br />

• Making the right impression?<br />

• Was it important to impress people?<br />

• Was it easy to relax?<br />

• What about the “superwoman complex” – was that designed to impress people? Was<br />

that a new façade?<br />

242

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