Michael Jackson Was Born in

Michael Jackson was born in August of 1958 in Gary, Indiana, the seventh child in a family of nine. His early childhood experiences strongly shaped Michael's self-image, his cognitive development, and his sensory-motor skills. Growing up in a large household headed by a harsh and heavy-handed patriarch must have also impacted Michael's social and psychological development. Michael's own claims about his father's abuse were substantiated by his sisters Janet and LaToya.

Michael was undoubtedly affected by his father's abusive presence in the household, perhaps contributing to his never having developed a stable family of his own, to his odd relationships with young boys, and to his numerous failed relationships. Michael's relationship with his father might have also contributed to his abnormal self-image, to the extreme alteration of his appearance that characterizes the superstar.

Many of Michael's closest friends are either women or young children, and his lack of having developed any clear or at least well-publicized friendships with men his own age might also be related to a difficult father-son relationship and to his lack of having a solid paternal role model during his early childhood. Furthermore, Michael's family struggled financially, which could have contributed to the stresses in the Jackson household. Financial imperatives might have fueled the Jacksons' commitment to musical success, which came rather rapidly with the Jackson 5.

Until they achieved fame and fortune, the entire family of eleven people resided in a small two-bedroom home in a working class town, and Michael's father Joseph worked in a local steel mill. Michael was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, and remained with the religion throughout much of his young adult life. In ascription with Jehovah's Witness practices, he went door-to-door.

His beliefs and his membership in what is considered to be a fringe religion probably contributed to his sense of isolation and to what many would view as an identity crisis. In addition to his personal life and issues associated only with his family of origin, Michael Jackson was a child star. Early stardom and the culture that surrounds celebrity might have contributed most to Michael Jackson's biosocial, cognitive, and psychosocial development. At age five he began singing in a group with his brothers.

At first, his father prohibited the Jackson children from leaving the house at might but they would sneak out to the neighbors to sing ("Michael Jackson"). Michael Jackson therefore developed an early dedication to success and professional development. Having stardom heaped upon him at a young age introduced Michael to a multitude of people that stimulated his psycho-social development and made up for the stern, almost isolationalist household in which he was raised. Moreover, with fame came fortune, and having early influxes of money contributed to the superstar's cognitive development.

Money imparted a sense of power and control over his life that he might not have experienced had he remained in Gary or followed in his father's blue collar footsteps. From being poor to having more money than he could spend, Michael made sense of the world largely through his own bubble, and he has remained secluded in a sort of bubble throughout his life. Undoubtedly, his early childhood experiences,.