1. A Life-changing Diagnosis: Mapping Common Ground between Young and Old -- 2. The Year of Turning Seventy: Finding Myself Among the Young-Old -- 3. Becoming a Nursery School Teacher: What Early Childhood Can Teach Us About the Rest of Life -- 4. Learning From Loss: Playing to Move Forward -- 5. Landing as an Immigrant: Starting Over at Midlife -- 6. If Memory Serves: How and Why I Remember the Difficult Times with Children -- 7. What’s Love Got to Do With It: Navigating the Emotional Thicket of the Classroom -- 8. Vulnerable Teacher: Holding Space for the Things that Really Matter -- 9. Called to Account: Putting Anxiety to Work -- 10. Holding a Space for Hope. .

In this book, Silin maps the common ground between early childhood and the period sociologists call “young-old age.” Emphasizing the continuities that bind children and adults rather than the differences that traditional developmental psychology claims separate us, he focuses on the themes we all manage across a lifetime. Building on memoir and narrative, Silin argues that when we recognize how the concerns of childhood continue to thread their way through our experience, we look anew at the shape of our lives. This book highlights the powerful generative acts through which people of all ages find new meanings and relationships to compensate for the individual and social losses that mark our lives. .