Red Hot Mamas: Coming into Our Own at Fifty [Paperback]

Colette Dowling's uplifting book celebrates the myriad possibilities for women who are now turning 50. "Red hot mamas" are the dozens of women (some famous, some not) who are defying stereotypes to discover renewed power and vitality at midlife. In honest, empowering language, the women share with readers their energetic approaches to menopause, career changes, family life, and intimacy.Colette Dowling is an internationally known writer and lecturer whose books have been translated into 20 languages. She is the author of numerous books, including Maxing Out, Red Hot Mamas, You Mean I Don't Have to Feel This Way?, and The Cinderella Complex, which has been in print since it was first published in 1981. Her articles have appeared in many magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, New York, and Harper's. She lives in Woodstock, New York.CHAPTER I
THE MAMAS
A GENERATION ARRIVES AT MIDLIFE
Coming Into Our Own • The Way It Was • The Way It Is • The Original Red Hot Mamas • Choice Points: The Revolution Among Midlife Women
 
IT WAS WILLA’S fiftieth. The women kept surging out onto the floor to dance, while the men stood around the edges of the lofty, cathedral-ceilinged living room and watched. Catherine had made a tape of all those songs from the 1970s, when their lives had begun to change. Tonight, there was something incantatory about the voices, the clapping, the Reeboks and cowboy boots beating rhythmically on the floor. The Mamas, many of them having reached fifty but some still in their forties, were jubilant. The dancing was hot. Claire, visiting from the city and dressed in black biker’s shorts, high-tops, and a motol3¸