To think 60 is old aged

[Goodtimes80]

And 35 Middle aged?

Miffed because the idea didn't pop into your head perhaps? Original ideas are rarely the property of youth. In most of my experience, younger people are not the most innovative because they haven't had the precursor thoughts.

OCSock My DGM was a home help at 80, looking after an 'old 72 yr old man' !!

So why is that a problem, if people want to engage?

Middle aged doesnt mean half way through life. It's half way through adulthood. So if you live somewhere that your life expectancy is 80, you are middle aged at around 50.

I am 45. I think I will be middle aged at 50-55. I feel and look young. I am incredibly happy being 45. So much happier than when I was 25!

I see this is a zombie thread but this made me laugh:
45-50 Middle aged
60-70 old
70+ elderly. IMO
So is 50-60 some kind of twilight zone? I guess I will find out soon enough if I'm still around

MycalmX you are labelling the things that are very much part of my everyday life as "re living my teens" I.e. Not for me. At 60 I have 6 years to work, I don't see that it is appropriate to label those making the same contributions as everyone else with a label. if you had bothered to read my post I said my age is no secret but labelling me is the start of discrimination. Just try translating your patronising post into terms that are applicable to race or gender. If you worked for me you would be off for E & D retraining.

I've considered myself middle aged since being about 38 years old. I'll definitely think of myself as an old person when I'm 60. It's just being realistic and accepting the age you are. I don't need to pretend to be in my 20s or 30s. Been there, done that, have no wish to do it again. I love being 41 - all the experience and skills I've learned, so much more than last year or five years ago.

Lordy this thread is nearly as old as I am.

Ex read my post. I didn't label you but I called your reasons ridiculous.

We all get older. I'm older now then I was 5 minutes ago. Running around with swishy hair doesn't change that.

No one can stop the clock. Why are we making getting older now a thing-that-must-not-happen.

Next you'll be saying you've had botox so you can't age

I am 60, that is enough. Of course I have some characteristics that are different to someone who is 40 or 50 or 80. I prefer to think of myself as an individual, a "grown up" or just "adult" The only justifiable use of these terms is when applied to things, and not people. E.G. "The medical problems of extreme old age" rather than "the extremely old". I remember my mother celebrating her 80th birthday with trepidation as a lot of people had told her that although she had done very well up to that point that 80 was the age you began to fall apart. Not nice for her, especially as she is now 91 and not much different in her appearance and capabilities.
I think the question is "why do you want to use that label?"
Let's look at Iman, Ellen Barkin, Christie Brinkley, Isabelle Huppert, Jane Birkin and Meryl Streep and reach for an adjective to describe them - is "old" an appropriate one?
I'm happy to look exactly as I am and would never have botox or surgery, but I do have wonderful swishy hair quite naturally (though the colour has not been natural since I was 18) and I'm really quite proud of it.

I'm 60 too. Personally I don't think I'm old just yet but if other people do, I really don't care. It's not a character flaw.

But it looks like I said everything I had to say the last time this thread was around. I've now got 2 years less left on the clock and time is more precious. If people really can't tell the difference between age and personality then that's their problem, not mine.

I used to work with this lady who was 70ish and she used to refer to elderly people as "the old girl" or "old dear" etc referring to those in their 80s Used to make me smile because she never saw herself as the old dear. I was only a 17 year old kid then but it still makes me smile thinking about it!

Some days I'm older than some other days.

Some people my age are WAAAAAY older than me by dint of life style/genes/illness/attitude etc even if they have walked this earth the same amount of time I have.

I don't get why youth is so overrated in current Western society, I really don't. I didn't get that even when I was still a young thing myself - provided one has survived childhood, one is 'young' . Not an achievement in itself.
Plodding on and learning and being open to new experiences and having fun during the only life each of us is given, doing something with the time we've got, that is an achievement.

Btw, I don't believe that older people 'deserve respect' purely b/o their numerical age. They deserve respect for their achievements, their wisdom (if they have any), their contribution to society, the service they provide in passing their knowledge on etc etc.

There are young, middle-aged and old bastards, just as there are young, middle-aged and old saints (and everything in between).

This obsession with age and labelling age is just weird

Why does it matter?

"So is 50-60 some kind of twilight zone"

I don't think that the labeling matters. Especially now that we know that taking up exercise at any age (except 85+) is beneficial.

I'm 50 next year. I've got friends/relatives/wider group that have taken up serious exercise in their 50's, one is on the posters for the NHS (it feels really odd to have him staring at me when i'm waiting for a smear). So 50-60 is an age when you start to get aware of your aging bones/muscles/bladder etc, but you can turn things completely around, because you don't have the risk of damaging your bones etc by leaving it until later.

My Mum and Nan wasn't elderly at 80, both were still working. It was very odd to be leaving my young children with my Mum, overnight, to look after people in a Care home, who were a decade younger than her. She would get them up, ready for school, then go to work.

My dm is 74 she was until last year found 3-4 nights a week working as a staff nurse in our local hospital, she only left because she got breast cancer and had to have chemotherapy

Because no one is going to label you "old" to do something nice to you. There you are cruising along as a normal adult who has been on the planet a little while longer than some other people and suddenly it is "old" .... we won't give the job despite the law etc. etc. you only have to read the very good article in The Guardian about women's pension age to see all the ways women of 60+ are discriminated against in the workplace.

I pick up my pension next February. Do I feel 65 ? My body may be in the 60s but my mind is still back in my 20s. My striking good looks have long since faded and my knees are shot from 45 years of running, but I'm a regular gym goer and still in good condition. In my father's generation when you were 50 you looked positively ancient. I'm told I look late 40s. If I had a partner half my age I could take her around the block a few times.

I am nearly 60. I run 2 businesses, have teenage children and am planning within the next 2 years on emigrating and setting up a new business in my new country.
My friend is a year older. She has retired. She listens to the cricket with her dh in their conservatory whilst doing her knitting and in her words is waiting to die. They have massive pensions, no children and have not been on holiday since they turned 50 as they felt holidays were for the young.

Dmil is 90 and goes out virtually every night playing Bridge and during the day meets her friends for coffee. She goes on holiday at least 6 times per year. Her only regret is some of her friends have died and as she gets older others are dying off.

Hmm. I think it depends on the person actually.

My FIL is 69. He walks 5 miles a day and lifts weights. He looks about 55. DH is 44 and has no wrinkles at all, not even crows feet when he smiles. He is also really big and strong, and there wouldn't be many 20 year olds who could survive a fight with him. I'm 47, and no wrinkles yet and I walk miles every day. I certainly don't feel old. Anything but! But I've worked with someone who was my age, and she looked 65!!

Dictionary seems to suggest 45-65y for middle aged.

Maybe what we actually need is to somehow change the stereotyped negativity of the phrase middle age, or just scrap the phrase altogether as it seems to attract so much negativity.

Is there really a need for it anyway - surely we can just say we are adults. Often how young or old someone feels is a state of mind anyway, and can change day to day, week to week.

And anyone who is a much younger adult, or a teen, pretty much thing anyone over about 35+ is old anyway!

I think someone has age issues here. I'm 36 and "young" certainly not middle aged! It all depended on how you want to perceive yourself.

It's all relative. When my Grandmother was in her 90s she used to say 'that old lady over there' meaning someone 5 years older. 60 old, no. 70, 80+ with declining health yes.