"I'm old" - I bet you aren't

ARGH!

My MIL was officially referred to as an 'elderly mother' when she was pregnant at 28!!

This is entirely subjective on my part, but I also think that there are two specific markers right now that separate the young from the not-quite-so-young: having already been well into your adulthood before the year started with a 2; and having grown up before the Internet.

Explaining to an incredulous teenager now about clipping order forms out of magazines to send off with a cheque to buy the few things that happened to be highlighted by the sellers, by mail (allow 28 days for delivery); and just the concept that there were so very many things that you just didn't know and had no practical way of ever finding out (not to mention that, if you missed a TV programme when it was broadcast, you would probably never be able to see it again)... just makes you feel like you're 1,000 years old to them!

I did chuckle at the post on TwiX whereby a university lecturer (not even a primary teacher) was dumbfounded at being asked if the student could cite a report 'from the 1900s' - and it was actually from 1994, which was obviously only a few months ago

They do, because health outcomes fall off a cliff starting age 65. The term 'elderly' holds no fear for me, though, since the NHS called me an elderly prima gravida at 36. I got that shock over with early!

Same , and I see school friends with young kids and wonder how they have the energy. My kids are teens and adults now . I'm glad I had them young because my health has taken a dive in the last 10 years and I just feel my age now .

It's all relative - I don't feel physically old (I'm only early 50s) but I feel too old to go out clubbing with the young people at work because I would feel out of place and can no longer drink as much as them, plus they're crazy when drunk.
I sometimes feel young, but my kids make me feel old because when doing physical activities I can't keep up with them. Also, I don't always understand what they're on about. When I'm with my parents I feel young though.

I've also found on MN that people automatically ascribe being very old to anybody who is a grandparent - or even to a parent of a fellow MNer who starts a thread about them, with the assumption of the age demographic of all MNers.

They are instantly painted as being frail, frightened to go out of the house, facing their twilight years with uncertainty - with death virtually guaranteed in the next six months - and almost certainly experiencing the onset of dementia, of course.

Then OP updates and it turns out that these doddery, shuffling parents are 52!

I know somebody who's a grandmother at 39 - she isn't sitting in her rocking chair all day with a pipe and slippers, listening to Daniel O'Donnell and sucking on Werther's originals!!

I’m 63 and sometimes say it when either I want to demonstrate I’ve had plenty of experience or when the culture has changed so much I feel out of time. and objectively-I am old-probably in the last 25% of my life. I feel fit and healthy now but am a realist. What really pisses me off is ‘midlife’. You see it in articles all the time when they are talking about 60 year olds. 40 is midlife. 60 isn’t.

Old is probably over about 60, elderly is about 80+, though the NHS seems to class you as elderly at 65

Interesting- I guess I'd consider 65 as old. But people saying "I'm old" in their early 40s is a bit baffling to me- what does that make people in their 60s then- the crypt keeper? I feel like if you call yourself old when you are in fact middle aged its sort of insulting to people older than you

Or asking whether it's ok to wear trainers or whatever at the ancient age of 32 🙄

Madness

@TheBewleySisters love your username! And your attitude.

If I had enough hair I might try that - please 'keep making a fool of yourself'

@AsAliveAsYouNeedMeToBe yeah - we know. Like don't keep rubbing it in though.

I'm 61 and have retired from my main job in NHS, but now work 3 days in a supermarket. Some days I enjoy it, but sometimes (like yesterday) it was a fucking struggle as I have rheumatoid arthritis and was pretending I could walk about just fine [NOT] However not ready to stop work completely so onwards and upwards.

But surely 60s do count as old? I mean it's no longer middle aged is it? What grates on me is when I hear/see people in their 60s described as elderly.

65 is old. It’s not middle aged. And I say that as an old person.

I have my state pension so am quite old.

Certainly there’s plenty of ageism.

@AsAliveAsYouNeedMeToBehas just proved that some people think so!

Over 60 IS old.

I was getting an annual checkup at the GP surgery, and asked the nurse a question about my blood pressure result, and she said something like
“Well, we find that in elderly people …”, and it took me a moment to realise she was talking about me! I said to her “hang on, are you saying I’m in the ‘elderly’ category?” It had never occurred to me until that moment that I had passed from middle-aged to elderly. I am 70. I still ride my motorcycle and my classic Mustang, still wear my biker boots, have my hair shaved at the sides with a big quiff at the front, and go to gigs, stay up late, but maybe I’m making a fool of myself and should be in a shawl and slippers in my rocking chair. Damn! I got old!

I'm 50 and sometimes feel old and sometimes feel very young. Depends on the day, what I'm doing and who I'm talking to!

I feel so youthful at 41, but often joke at work "I'm old, what do I know", because I'd hate the youngsters I work with to think I'm trying to be down with the kids!

I’d have thought my dad would be classed as old at coming up 88. He’s got a dodgy heart having had a valve repaired, 5 stents and a pacemaker fitted a few months ago.

He was out painting the fence a couple of weeks ago and then did the shed. Not long before that, he was moving and re-plumbing one of their radiators. I reckon he’s a robot.

Mother is 81 and wallpapering at the moment.

Age becomes a mindset. I’m 67 and retired but through volunteering I’m generally busier now than when I worked full time - and because I’m making my own choice about where to give my time and what to do, feel much more alive. I have arthritis but it doesn’t stop me doing anything I want to do. As my highly independent nearly 90 year old mother says, just keep on doing by keeping busy.

According to my youngest when he was 8 (he’s now 18) I was old, as I was born in the “olden days”.

I must be ancient now.

I'm the exact age that someone on MN recently described as " elderly ".

I don't necessarily agree with them, but there we are.