The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50

In the twenty-first century, a developmental phase of life is emerging as significant and distinct, capturing our interest, engaging our curiosity, and expanding our understanding of human potential and development. Demographers talk about this new chapter in life as characterized by people--those between ages fifty and seventy-five--who are considered neither young nor old. In our third chapters we are beginning to redefine our views about the casualties and opportunities of aging; we are challenging cultural definitions of strength, maturity, power, and sexiness. This is a chapter in life when the traditional norms, rules, and rituals of our careers seem less encompassing and restrictive; when many women and men seem to be embracing new challenges and searching for greater meaning in life. In The Third Chapter, Dr. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot offers a strong counterpoint to the murky ambivalence that shrouds our clear view of people in their third chapters. She challenges the still-prevailing and anachronistic images of aging by documenting and revealing the ways in which the years between fifty and seventy-five may, in fact, be the most transformative and generative time in our lives--tracing the ways in which wisdom, experience, and new learning inspire individual growth and cultural transformation. The women and men whose voices fill the pages of The Third Chapter tell passionate and poignant stories of risk and vulnerability, failure and resilience, challenge and mastery, experimentation and improvisation, and insight and new learning.

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot is the Emily Hargroves Fisher Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. A sociologist specializing in the culture of schools, socialization within families and communities, and the relationships between culture and learning styles, she is the author of eight books, including I've Known Rivers, The Art and Science of Portraiture, and The Essential Conversation: What Parents and Teachers Can Learn from Each Other.