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We need a new word for between middle aged and old

127 replies

PersonalBest · 05/05/2025 09:20

I'm 60, obviously not middle aged. I don't feel old though. My mother is old, she's 91. Geriatrics has come up with the term "old old" (I think!) because people are living so long. But I think there's a gap now, for those of us who are in-between old and middle aged. Am I young old? Pre old? Post middle aged? Any ideas? A lot of people will say I'm just old, get on with it. Well, I'm not accepting it sorry!

OP posts:
IfYouPutASausageInItItsNotAViennetta · 06/05/2025 08:12

anonymous98 · 05/05/2025 22:37

35 is relatively young

Of course it is, relative to somebody who is 100; but unless we only categorise people on a binary as either young old, I don't think it would be a stand-out descriptive feature that most people would instantly bring to mind when they thought of you.

You've eventually reached adulthood and then lived for almost the same time all over again!

In world terms, the average age of a person is 25; so it firmly puts you into the older 50% of the population.

Again, it's not some kind of value judgment, where young is supposedly a compliment and old is a gross insult; it's just a way of referring to the number of years you've been alive. Not young and not old: therefore (early) middle-aged.

Nsky62 · 06/05/2025 20:20

uncomfortablydumb60 · 05/05/2025 12:32

@Nsky62I’m sorry, it’s tough when life throws a curveball and change is enforced.
slightly different but some parallels but I have CP and was medically retired at 27 after a major operation left me with a broken femur which refused to unite for 4 years
At 60, I’m lucky to be mobile, although I use a walker now.

That is much harder for you tho! Much too young, I have been married, had sons, worked, had nice shoes ( can’t now due to wider , feet, insoles and tremors).
I’m adjusting and mourn what I had, more accepting now

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