Ethical Autobiography Essay Sample

I believe everyone has their ethical values and moral values passed on to them during childhood. My ethical and moral values are respect, honor, and integrity. These values have allowed me to show everyone around me that I am trustworthy and dependable. Without honor, integrity, and respect I would not be highly trusted and known for my work as an aircraft mechanic and technical inspector. Honor, integrity, and respect are the values taught to me in my early childhood by my parents and grandparent. As an adult, I use this values as my standard guidelines to guide me, individually, to make the right decisions and choices daily.

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Each person in all cultures and societies have sets of values, morals, and ethics that allows all individual to make different choices or decisions in a given situation differently. These moral values are also passed on from generation to generation. As a child, my parent and grandparents taught me to have honor, integrity, and respect for myself and family. I grew up close to my grandparents (on my mothers side) helping them around their farm. My grandpa and grandma did not use profanity in their vocabulary and as an adult I deeply admire that. During my teenage years, I used profanity a few times and every time I say a bad word I would think of my grandparents. Since then I pledge to myself to follow my grandpas teachings and never to use profanity, and I have done so throughout my life. My grandparents were primarily well-known for their kindness, honesty, and integrity. When my grandpa made a deal with someone, his handshake was his contract to close the deal. As a child and as an adult I hold my grandparents my role models.

I have tried to live my life the best I can like my grandpa to honor him and my parents. My mother also is very much like my grandma kind and respectful. I saw my mom carry baby clothing in her purse that my little brother out grew until she would meet a mother with a baby and give her the baby clothing. I am grateful to have had and have such admirable role models in my life. Their teachings made me who I am today, and I will continue to follow their example till I pass on.

As a parent, I teach my four children the same moral and ethical values that I learn in my childhood. Respect, honor, and integrity are what my family line is known for; my hope is always to be an example to my children just like my parents and grandparents were to me. I also hope that my children pass on to their children the same moral and ethical values to honor their great, great, great grandpa and grandma. In reflecting on the kind of principles that they taught me, I would say that my life has become one where I can look back to and be proud of. The values that I have grown up with, as well as the examples that my parents have set for me offer me guidance when Im dealing with my own children and dont know what to do.

It is indeed true that nobody knows at what point our lives end tomorrow is not assured. And so my existence to the far that I have lived has shown me that there is so much life has to offer, and it is simply the attitude that one takes it in with that determines what kind of life they live. In the case of my religion, I have grown up being a catholic, something that my parents and grandparents were also. The religious background in which they grew in helped me largely to cultivate the culture that I have today, both as a worker, a father and a man in society. Honor and respect are part of the larger norms of life that help people cope with each other every day. These are the same values that I teach my children, and as I look back and monitor their interactions, I see that my wife and I have done a great job so far of inculcating these values.

One of the advantages of having these positive values inculcated in my life while I was still young is that they have helped me to look on to life in a consistently positive perspective. Unlike the model in Eriksons model where individuals look onto their bad choices with regret and remorse, my life has been one where I could say that within the circumstances in which I found myself, I acted in a way which can be said to be the best from my point of view. This can be pointed out from the example of my youth. Despite having learned from my parents and grandparents concerning the use of foul language, I eventually learned how to overcome that kind of speech by following the example that was set for me. I could say that as a youthful man, that stage was bound to happen. But on the brighter side, I realized the example that had been set for me and decided to follow it through.

This forms the basis for my first reflection on the first stage of life, which according to Erikson is the basic trust versus mistrust notion. Based on Eriksons line of thinking, this kind is at the beginning of life when the child is interacting with the parent, most especially the mother. During this period, the child learns how to discern situations of trust and those of mistrust. At this stage, the mother is expected to indulge the child. However, this is a tricky balance as overindulging or neglect ca lead to developmental problems. This is in fact true in my life. At this stage, I always wondered why my father always came home tired, and hoped that one day he would come home energized. This was part of the system of growth that always hoped everything would get better at the end of the day. On one occasion when I asked my mother, she explained to me why this was the case, and finally understood. Overindulging during this time can be quite detrimental to growth, thus the instances where children throw extreme tantrums when they cannot get what they want. Under-indulging, which may amount to neglect, can also become another detrimental situation to the growth of the child and lead to their withdrawal.

On the second stage of growth, Erikson describes the period just after the child has grown out of his toddler ages and is beginning to do things on their own. Despite their need to feel independent at this time and do things on their own, children may not always be able to do this. I remember that using the potty was quite challenging for me, and I walked quite easily. My parents still have videos of the first time I walked. In one instance in these videos, I hear my mum encouraging that Ill soon be able to use the potty as well as I can walk. Soon after, she explains that I could go without much help. This echoes the theory that Erikson gives concerning the confusing ground parents have to walk in ensuring that they dont embarrass their children for things they may not be able to do well in this stage.

The third stage largely involves a system of imitation where the child observes characteristics of the same-sex parent and begins to align themselves with these behaviors. During this time I always wanted to be as strong as my dad, who would carry me around in his shoulders. My grandfather also had this tractor that I was so curious about driving. This may be true to the theory that Erikson is holding to. However, in the case of homosexual individuals, this may not be the case due to social factors such as domestic violence and the like. In other cases, the orientation of a person may be completely independent of these factors.

This goes on into the fourth stage where the child is either inferior or industrious. A child is commended for being ready to do something, such as go to school prepared. Because of the inner calm within the child during this period, they can easily learn new things. Looking back, I remember that this period was marked by an ability to do most of the things on my own including brush my teeth and do my homework which gave me much pleasure and the motivation to learn more.

The fifth stage is even more identifiable. This stage is the identity versus the role confusion stage, where someone never knew what they really wanted to do. It is the adolescent stage. At this point, I wanted to become a rock star, a truck driver. I even wanted to become a waiter at the local restaurant where my first crush used to have lunch. As Erikson describes it, I couldnt really take hold of anything. During this time that I had the rock star career in my head is when the foul language would go on for a while. It was a point of great discovery, but confusion was not lacking.

My sixth stage came on later in my twenties when I joined college and decided to pursue my career. This is also where I met my wife. At this point, my grandparents had sat me down and gave me a talk about thinking about my future, which Id begun to think about, although it was still quite shallow. Despite liking to be alone, I found that it was quite fun to hang out with her, and soon after we began dating. This stage, as Erikson describes, is a stage where one is still in self-discovery and has not yet attained maturity. I now see the importance of my wife and I dating for the while that we did before getting married. It may have ended up a disaster then.

I would say that I am living the final stage of my life now. Considering the marriage to my wife and the four kids that are as a result of it, I would say that according to the Erikson and Freud theory, I have qualified to be at the last point which stretches all the way to my sunset days.