What was going on when I was born?

THE midlife crisis is almost a cliche, and middle age is, indeed, a time for taking fresh stock of yourself. Particularly for women it involves relinquishing long-held notions about personal finances. Many women in their 40's and 50's grew up with the expectation that someone - typically a husband but sometimes a father - would always be around to take care of them. Most working women who have pursued careers and have chosen not to marry must acknowledge by middle age that, unless they have inherited wealth, they will be responsible for providing for themselves for the rest of their lives. Many middle-aged homemakers who devoted their younger years raising a family are in a similar position. Now divorced, they cannot count on their husbands for support and often find themselves with sole responsibility for the financial well-being of themselves and their children.

King Juan Carlos met the leaders of Spain's principal political parties today on the eve of Thursday's general election. The meeting, clearly intended to demonstrate that events were proceeding as planned, symbolized the key role played by the monarchy in sustaining this country's young and fragile democracy. It reminded many Spaniards of a similar gathering in the first hours after the King's resistance aborted an attempted coup in February 1981. Today was a legally mandated ''day of reflection,'' with all electioneering banned. It was for this date that three colonels had planned a military uprising, for which they were arrested by security agents just less than a month ago. But the arrests did nothing to still a torrent of new coup rumors that persisted through three weeks of feverish campaign activity.

The Argentine Government has agreed to make spending cuts that may prove politically unpopular as a condition for obtaining $2 billion in loans from the International Monetary Fund, Argentine officials announced today. The loans from the international lending agency represent an emergency first step intended to help Argentina avoid default on its foreign debt of nearly $40 billion, the world's third-largest. Argentina's installment payments on the debt are about $1.7 billion in arrears, according to banking sources. But the ''belt-tightening'' aspects of the agreement are expected to meet with opposition from labor and political leaders who fear that they might increase unemployment and limit wage increases. The nation's economic problems have sparked demonstrations in recent months against the military administration.

The anxiety over cyanide-laced Extra Strength Tylenol capsules and other contaminated over-the-counter medications has heightened concern in the New York metropolitan area and elsewhere around the country about the possible poisoning of candy on Halloween, officials in various communities said yesterday. Fears about children's safety have become so great that some communities - such as Vineland, N.J. - have banned trick or treating. In other places, police chiefs are urging parents to curb their children's Halloween rounds, school officials have promised prizes to children who stay home and hospitals have offered to scan candy with the same kind of X-ray devices used on luggage at airports. In Trenton, Governor Kean is scheduled to sign a bill today that would impose a mandatory six-month jail sentence on anyone convicted of handing out contaminated Halloween candy.

A New Melting Pot: The City in the 80's A series of articles appearing periodically. Graciella Viera, who migrated to this country from Cuba at the age of 7, says she will always remember her first day at school for what it told her about what life would be like here. ''Now that you're in America,'' she recalled her teacher telling her, ''we're changing your name to Grace.'' That was 22 years ago and Miss Viera has held onto the Americanization of her name. But these days Miss Viera is a teacher herself, and she says she would never ask a foreign-born student to change his name or in any other way forgo his cultural identity. If anything, Miss Viera, a teacher at Public School 89 in Elmhurst, Queens, says she attempts - as many others today do in public schools around the city - to reinforce that heritage. There has been a change in philosophy over the past decade in the city's public schools -long the homogenizers of the young, where learning the Pledge of Allegiance, reciting the preamble to the Constitution and cutting turkeys out of cardboard for Thanksgiving have been a way to inculcate American values to generations.

George J. Stigler, the 1982 Nobel laureate in economics, took the prize for frankness at the White House today as he casually remarked that the current economy was in ''depression.'' He added that the Reagan Administration's supply-side antidote was somewhere between a ''gimmick'' and a ''slogan'' and that, as approving as he was of President Reagan, his professorial instinct was to give him an ''incomplete'' for the course thus far. ''I want to see what's going to happen in the next two years,'' Professor Stigler said after a visit with the President in which White House aides hoped to garner routinely favorable publicity. The University of Chicago professor's ear-catching lecture in the briefing room was the highlight of a White House day of small public events that veered toward unexpected, sometimes negative attention.

''The masses of people on all continents angrily protest against Washington's aggressive policy, which is threatening to push the world into the flames of a nuclear war. The adventurism, rudeness and undisguised egoism of this policy arouse growing indignation in many countries, including those allied with the U.S.A.'' -Leonid I. Brezhnev, the Soviet leader, in a Kremlin address. (A1:6.)

Japanese computer manufacturers, with the aid of their Government, are moving ahead in an ambitious effort to surpass American companies in building high-speed computers vital to national security, according to officials, industry and university scientists in the United States. The rapid Japanese advance has raised the possibility that the United States could become dependent on a foreign supplier for socalled supercomputers, which are used in weapons development as well as many nonmilitary research applications. The situation is likely to spark renewed debate within the United States about the proper American response to Japanese industrial efforts. A panel of American computer scientists, in a report that will soon be made public, is urging that the Government undertake a national program to spur development of such supercomputers, which are the fastest calculating machines on earth. Such a program, if adopted, would be one of the first in which the Government, industry and universities collaborate to counter Japanese moves, which are seen as having been so successful in part because of close cooperation between business and Government there.

Because of an editing error, an article in Metropolitan Report Tuesday about the College Board's convention listed the wrong location for Wesleyan University. It is in Middletown, Conn.

International U.S. foreign policy was denounced by Leonid I. Brezhnev, who linked Soviet overtures to China to the tense relations between Moscow and Washington. Addressing Soviet military leaders, the Soviet leader said the Reagan Administration's foreign policy was marked by ''adventurism, rudeness and undisguised egoism'' that he said threatened to push the world into nuclear war. (Page A1, Column 6.) Three Ulster policemen were killed when a large bomb planted by Irish nationalists exploded under their car. Reports from the scene, 20 miles from Belfast, said the blast left a crater 60 feet wide and 40 feet deep and was heard five miles away. (A9:1.)

France's Socialist Government, hoping to restock the country's depleted foreign exchange reserves and stave off another devalutation of the franc, today concluded an agreement with an international group of banks for a $4 billion standby credit. The large credit, to extend for 10 years, was heavily oversubscribed by the consortium of 126 French and foreign banks, led by France's Societe Generale. The credit carries an interest rate linked to prevailing market rates, currently about 13 percent. In announcing the signing, the French Finance Ministry said the money could be drawn in weekly sums of $600 million. However, officials added that the Government was undecided on whether to borrow the entire $4 billion as quickly as possible to increase the reserves, or draw it only as needed. The second choice, however, could risk tipping off the financial markets that the Government was short of cash with which to defend the franc.

A Superior Court judge in Connecticut was named yesterday as a oneman grand jury to investigate allegations of illegal dumping and storage of hazardous waste by three companies, including Environmental Waste Removal Inc. of Waterbury. The judge, Martin Nigro, will also hear evidence involving the Connecticut Treatment Corporation of Bristol and Tri-Chem Environmental Industries Inc. of Stamford, according to Austin J. McGuigan, the Chief State's Attorney, who had sought the grand jury inquiry. Mr. McGuigan, who is the state's top criminal-justice official, said the criminal investigation would allow for subpoenas to gain access to records of the two companies. The companies have already been the subject of civil inquiries.