Not that old
Remember when anyone 20 years older than you were, or certainly anyone your parents’ age, was old. The odd thing is that that age kept changing the same as yours did.
A few weeks back I read a chart issued (I think) by the World Health Organization, which they felt gave a muchneeded redefinition to the terminology applied to different chronological stages of life. I agreed totally and thought I must share it with all of you who don’t particularly like the word senior and don’t feel like it applies to you.
I say “I think” because I didn’t write it down, figuring I could look it up when the time came and now I cannot find it. Which I’m sure has nothing to with the chronological stage of my life. Ha ha.
Anyway, with the advances of science and medicine, and more knowledge of lifestyle consequences, people are living to be much older, and healthier while they’re at it, so it makes perfectly good sense to update the terminology used to describe ages.
In the Bible three score and 10 (70) was old. I don’t know why things changed but by the Middle Ages, 60 was called old.
The term senior citizen is said to have started in the United States in the 1930s as a more inclusive and respectful term than old age pensioner.
Back then, the average 65-year-old woman was expected to live another 12 years. Now she can expect to get another 25 years.
Nowadays you can be called a senior when you’re 55. That’s lovely when you’re getting a discount but how can the word senior or any other one word cover a lifespan of some 35 years?
I do remember some of the terms that I referred to above. Let’s try these:
20-35- young adult 35-50- mid-life adult 50 -65 middle aged 65-75 mature adult 75-85 senior 85-100 elderly 100-up geriatric
That’s all a bit too much and probably not exactly what I read, but you get the point and the main point I got out of it is that I am a mature adult with my senior years well ahead of me. How can I argue with the World Health Organization?
Janine is happy to be a senior when it comes to discounts, but she won’t go to events for seniors. She has this idea that once she starts going to things for seniors she will be condemning herself to being old. Janine isn’t old. According to the chart above she is a mature adult. (That’s kind of awkward to put on an announcement; ‘Card game tonight for the middle aged, mature adults, seniors, elderly and up’.)
There is actually something to Janine’s feelings though. It has been studied. Well everything has been studied, and the people who study aging talk about the “young-old,” and the “old-old,” a group that may be older or the same age and have more physical needs and functional impairments.
The problem with terms like “the elderly” or “seniors” is that
they lump these two groups together, and the young-old do not want to be identified with the old-old. Ergo you can be a young 80 or an old 50. (Or one or the other depending on the day. Ha ha). In addition, you could be young-old mentally and be old-old physically or vice versa.
I know what they mean, though. If I had to pick between an “Art Class” and an “Art Class for Seniors” I’d pick the Art Class. Why do activities that have nothing to do with age have to be defined by age? I’d happily paint with 10-year-olds or 100-year-olds and probably learn something from both of them.
Physical condition is a whole other thing.
Janine says she’d rather be called a great old broad than a senior citizen. Can you see that on a notice “Card game tonight for great old broads and geezers”?
I told her to call herself a boomer and she said tell that to the people who advertise events for seniors.
Consider yourself told.
The problem with terms like “the elderly” or “seniors” is that they lump these two groups together, and the young-old do not want to be identified with the old-old.
Janine says she’d rather be called a great old broad than a senior citizen. Can you see that on a notice “Card game tonight for great old broads and geezers”?