From the Editors

What's this--another double issue? Strictly speaking, no, even though it's four pages longer than the Spring/Summer issue (v.22, nos.3-4). Volume 23, number 1, of Feminist Collections has a greater than usual number of articles. That's partly because a call for website reviews last spring brought a terrific response (see the articles on pages 28-40, reviewing Internet resources on African American feminism, eating disorders, women artists, and women in the Christian tradition), and partly because of the special sixteen-page feature that begins on page 11: "A Celebration of Intergenerational Mentoring and 'Mothering.'" And we have two book reviews (pages 1-6) and an extensive video review (pages 7-10), all dealing in one way or another with women's aging and changing.

I've been thinking a lot lately, myself, about age and change and mentoring/mothering. About to turn forty-five, I feel I am now solidly middle-aged. This is not an unpleasant sensation for me (or for my slightly younger partner, who was actually thrilled when I experienced what must have been my first premenopausal hot flash), but it is a novel one. The youngest of five siblings and one of the younger cousins of my generation in a huge extended family, I have come through not only childhood and adolescence but also a good chunk of adulthood feeling like "the baby"--the naive, inexperienced (even if somewhat precocious) one; the one needing guidance and protection--in many social and work situations. I have tended to look for older mentors and mother figures and to experience alarm at the idea of being that sort of figure myself. Until a few years ago, my life circumstances also facilitated my sense of being an extended adolescent or perpetual college student: I moved often, always to rental apartments with a hodge-podge of make-do furniture, sometimes to distant new cities where I knew hardly anyone; I avoided settling into long-term primary relationships; and I was not birthing or raising children.

Entering a committed relationship in my late thirties and eventually owning a home led to feeling somewhat more grown-up. As I hovered around forty, my partner and I even pondered the possibilities of raising a child of our own. Then, three years ago, something happened that seemed to advance us a whole generation in one leap. We got to know a young woman in our town who was having a baby alone. An early fantasy of adopting her child soon gave way to the realizations that (1) our young friend was going to be a fine mother; (2) starting our forties as full-time parents of an infant might not be what we really wanted to do; and (3) even so, these people were going to be in our lives. In essence, we suddenly became grandparents. We care for our now-three-year-old "granddaughter" at least one day and night a week; her mom, whose biological family lives far away, relies on us much as a young woman might turn to her own mother for support and advice; and we make it a high priority to share holidays and major life events.

At the same time, we have a teenager, the daughter of other friends, living with us part-time to attend classes and activities in our area, and we are mentors or othermothers (a term used by several of the writers in this issue's intergenerational feature) to her as well. I marvel at how different we are, especially when our generation gap becomes apparent ("those aren't 'huge black CDs'; they're record albums!"). Yet I delight in her company and her sixteen-year-old feminist sensibilities.

This all makes my head spin. But then, so does thinking about my mother, who at eighty-one is eligible for unemployment compensation because she was laid off from her part-time bookkeeping job before she was ready (financially or otherwise) to retire. My mom also surprised the staff at a local clinic last year when she went in to request a flu shot. She began to explain that although she knew the shots were in limited supply, she thought she might qualify for one due to having had pneumonia in the past (apparently it didn't occur to her that age could be reason enough). The nurse at the desk looked at her and said, "Well, let's see... Are you at least sixty-five?"

So...age, change, and the progression of generations: universal and unavoidable, yet experienced uniquely by every woman. This issue of FC offers rich resources for addressing those themes in a women's studies setting. It also includes reviews of thirteen new reference books on various topics, and news of Internet sources and periodicals that we've recently become aware of. Dig in!

m J.L.