Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg Turns 50!

As Caroline Kennedy Scholssberg turns 50, we realize, there are some contemporary milestone birthdays you just can’t ignore, and this is one. Her 50th birthday saw her on the cover of AARP magazine as the winner of their 2008 Inspire Awards. For anyone who holds her in their minds eye as a little girl in the White House, as a young woman, mother and sister, and who felt the familiar pang of pain for her as each of her tragic life milestones unfolded, it seems as though she got here overnight.

Kennedy has emerged from her extraordinary life experiences as a woman her parents would be intensely proud of. A wife, mother of three, highly educated and deeply immersed in public service, you don’t have to do too much research to find that her life is one that is rich in family, good friends, and service to her community. She exemplifies everything the idea that fifty is the new forty represents.

Most interesting and telling of all in her interview with AARP was that Kennedy shared an intriguing glimpse into what many women turning fifty experience: a persistent, low-grade rumble of inner change. For many women, there is a feeling that something has forever altered in you when you reach fifty; that you have crossed over some invisible crevasse that has freed you to move forward toward something that you can’t see, much less understand.

Yet one can’t help but wonder…did she receive her AARP card in the mail one morning? Did her husband hand her the AARP envelope with a twinkle in his eye? Because if there’s a life-affirming experience akin to a mid-life wake-up call, that certainly qualifies as one! Do you suppose she’ll use it for a discount at her health club?

In addition to Caroline Kennedy's 2007 milestone birthday, see our month-by-month list of successful women turning 50 in 2008...