Week 5

As few members of the class have already done, I too would like to discuss the speaker Joan Blades. I think Joan touched on a very important topic that relates to our class, and that’s the unfair advantage of mothers in the workplace. I was shocked to see that single mother’s made even less women who were not parenting as well as men. I feel that if anybody should be making more money it should be the working mother. I was also saddened to see that the United States was the only first world country to not provide a paid maternity leave for mothers. Some countries go as far as having paid paternity leave. As future psychologist we are all aware of the importance for the infant and caregiver to bond at an early age, yet we see some cases were a mother gives birth and returns to work the next week to ensure that her family is fed and bills are paid. It is so disheartening to see that countries in worse financial situations than the US still manage to allow mothers to stay at home with their children without having to worry about how to put food on the table.

As far as the article goes, I think that Guindon & Hanna (2002) really do a good job with explaining the concepts of different forms of synchronicity through the case studies.  I was having a little trouble differentiating between the three, but after reading the case studies, I now understand. After reading the case studies, I then tried to reflect back on my life to see if any synchronicity occurred in my life. I was not able to really pinpoint a time with this may have occurred, I think if I had more time to self-examine as the clients did with their career counselors then I may have remembered something.   I would enjoy undergoing meditation, guided imagery, or dream analysis as the article suggests to help recognize some coincidence that may have occurred in my life.

Lastly, during the discussion of last week’s article my group talked about career development just being a constant search for meaning in one’s life. The authors of this article mentioned the same. I think it’s important to realize that one’s dream occupation may not “coming knocking on your door,” until later in life. I found it very intriguing when one group member shared that her mother was in her 50s and still talked about being unsure of what she wanted to do when she “grew up.” I think’s it’s very healthy to be ready to evolve and change as new interests and ideologies form.

Guindon, M. H., & Hanna, F. J. (2002). Coincidence, happenstance, serendipity, fate, or the hand of God: Case studies in synchronicity. The Career Development Quarterly, 50(3), 195-208.