In the case of both Generativity Three and Generativity Four it is a matter, as Vaillant indicates, of both care and wisdom:
Generativity has to do with the people one chooses to take care of: Guardianship entails a dispassionate and less personal world view. It is possible to imagine care without wisdom, but not wisdom without care—and indeed, in adult development, the capacity to care does precede wisdom. Wisdom requires not only concern, but also the appreciation of irony and ambiguity, and enough perspective and dispassion not to take side. [Vaillant, 2012, p. 165]
We will have more to say about the interplay between wisdom and care as we turn to insights offered by our own mid and late-centurion men and women of the Nevada County, CA, Sage Leadership Project as they reflect on their third and fourth role of generativity. At this point, we merely want to express our view that wisdom is to be found in early adult years as we learn how to become caring parents to our children and to our special projects.
A considerable amount of wisdom is also needed to be an effective Generativity Two mentor, motivator, mobilizer, monitor, and mediator. We wish to honor George Vaillant’s work and build on it by moving forward with our own exploration of the third role of generativity. In short, we wish to emulate the very notion of Generativity Three as a bridge between that which has already existed and that which moves forward into the future.
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