Most families go through five stages: 1) family founding; 2) child bearing; 3) child rearing; 4) child launching; and 5) empty nest. If you imagine your life in the family as an on-going cycle, it looks about like this. The cir- cle represents a life span of about 50 years for example There are five: stages in the product life cycle: development, introduction, growth, maturity, decline.