To wonder why up to 35 is now considered young

It IS young

I'd say that 45 is middle aged, 35 is still young.

What is worse is that at 50 you re considered 'senior'.
The local lending library has several 'for Senior' or 'for the over-50s' books.
How patronising and ageist.

Ive always hated young people being aged up to 24...its ridiculous 18 and over is aan adult.
Annoys me when William and Harry are called boys

Surely it's all relative? I am early 60s many of my colleagues are early 30s I consider them 'young' (perhaps they consider me an oldie ). My parents are in their very late 80s, they consider me and my friends the same age as 'young'.

My parents were both retired at my age with very good pensions, that won't be happening me and my DH despite careful pension planning and years of savings ....

I think 35 is middle aged.

When I was 16, I thought 35 was old.
When I was 35, my (younger) brothers thought 35 was middle-aged.
Now that I'm 60+, I think 35 is young.

It all depends on your perspective!

People live a lot longer and life expectancy is much higher so in the scheme of things 35 is relatively young.

I don't blame people for wanting to celebrate this. Not a day goes by on here without someone asking if they are "too old" to have their ears pierced, or go to a nightclub or post a selfie or have any kind of fun at all on the basis that they're older than 22 and therefore have to behave like a Stepford Wife. People are so miserably judgemental about "age appropriate" behaviour when it comes to women.

So let's all crack on and be as young as we feel.

15 years ago my MIL in their 50s were talking about becoming middle aged.

However you look at their wedding photos them very late teen/early 20 and their parents in their 40s and 50s were dressed already as old people and apparently acted like it though the one just pushing 40 lived into their 90s.

In their 50s my IL were going on exotic holidays were out two or three times a week on top of working - they wore jeans and modern style clothes. In comparrison to their parents at same age they must have felt young. They were also initally upset they were grandparents as they were too young despite DH being a decade older than when they became parents.

Late 60s early 70s their slowing down really quickly but would refer to themsleves as middle aged rather than old - old is other people still people in next decades up.

I suppose that's trickled down - in my early 40s I'm probably middle aged but seems an odd label to apply when IL refer to themselves as that.

@MagpiePi yes but in modelling, gymnastics, ice skating you're considered 'retired' at around 24. Hardly a sign you're actually old it's just the sport requires very young bodies.

I'd assume it's either:
-- a service or product normally targeting young adults expanding its market (I think a lot of young people aimed charities like the Prince's Trust goes up to 30 and that there is a need for some services considered for young people to be available to older adults),
-- a research group wanting to expand their data set in a similar way
-- or the government trying again with a policy that 'young adults' couldn't be in need of particular types of benefits like they tried with housing benefit/the housing element of UC some years back.

I expect to live well into my 80s and 90s and I expect to have a good quality of life too. I also will not get a pension until nearly 70. So I will be working until then. The pension age for women has gone up and up and up it was 60 and then 65 (to make it equal) and now it is 68 -I have another 20 working years. I don't want to -but needs must.

In the sport of rowing you are considered a Veteran at the age of 28...

I agree with @babydisney on the age range

I remember the conversation with MIL 68 and DH 32

"If you're middle aged what does that make me?"
"Old obviously,"

She wasn't impressed

To me (Gen X)

U35 Young
35 - 59 Middle aged
60+ Old
80+ Elderly

I am 47 and still feel young. I know i am not of course but I still feel it.

I think 35 is old young as it’s not really young but not middle aged either.

I seem much younger than my mum did at my age, probably because she was married younger and by the time she was the age I am now both her kids were adults. My youngest is just starting high school.

I'd still consider 'young' up to 25! But as a 30 year old for my social group I am considered young to have had a child, own a property etc

So maybe it's in line with how many life events are happening later as a general rule.

That’s probably how I’d put it.

I think people are acting younger, older. I remember my nanny in her 60s - she wore the same fashions she’d been wearing for the previous 30 years, spent a lot of time in her house etc. My mum is in her 60s, changes her clothes with the different trends, goes out drinking with friends, travels, uses social media, rolls with the times so to speak. I think the gulf between old and young behaviours emerges later in life now.

People insist on referring to Harry & Meghan as a "young couple" (as in, poor them) when she is pushing 40 and he's not far behind.

God I'm 25 and only finished uni 3 years ago. I'm 6 months out of internships etc and in my first well paid job. I still feel very young...

But also a health thing- people are living for longer now

I’m in my late 20s and a lot of my friends are still living with parents or in shared houses/student let type situations. Some of them are still at uni, none of them (apart from me) have kids yet. A few are engaged but none married yet. None of us own houses. My partner is in his mid 30s and still has friends his age who live with their parents.

I think it’s largely a financial thing, no one can afford to ‘grow up’ so young any more

I'm 32 and still don't think of myself as a "grownup" My DM is 68 and incredibly active, loads of hobbies etc. so I never think of her as old in the slightest. She's probably fitter than a lot of ppl in their 30s/40s.

People live well into their eighties and nineties now. They marry and have children far later. My grandparents - all four of them - died in their sixties. My parents, despite very serious long term illnesses are still going in their eighties. My parents married at 21 and had children in their twenties. I married at 30 and had DC just before I turned forty. And that's quite typical these days.

35 is still very young in terms of life experience and expectancy in comparison with previous generations.