October 28, 1982

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.