Asking what age do you consider to be old?

[Teadrinker11]

I was thinking about this and I don't consider 60s that old at all. Even 70s nowadays aren't that old imo. I think a lot of it is down to lifestyle but in general speaking, what age would you consider to be old?

ThatsNotItAtAll

I think you make some good points.
I was 40 with 2 children under the age of 3. No family help, an OH who was often away for days at a time on work assignments. I was worn to a thread.
However 20 years on I feel amazing.
Feeling old at 31 is recoverable.
Having time and energy to self care can work magic. I feel 25.

I think 90s 🙈🙈🙈

My plan is to consider myself young by default until I turn 80. Then reassess.

Psychologically ageing doesn't actually have to be linear and you can feel younger even though you're actually older, when life gets calmer

Very good post - I was also thinking that at 31 I felt quite mumsy and overwhelmed with having a new baby. Before I got pregnant I had lost some weight and was feeling good about myself and that all went by the wayside. Kudos to women who manage to have a young baby, work AND exercise! But now at 50 with the baby at university I am probably fitter than I have ever been.

yellowsuninthesky

But now at 50 with the baby at university I am probably fitter than I have ever been.

That's good to hear.
I feel the same. My children are now adults, I have started a small business working from home, have time and money to to to the gym lmost every day. I get plenty sleep, eat good food, meditate, have time and space to keep up a good skin care regime.
We can re-claim the youthful feeling.

@RosesAndHellebores, my DM was like your grannie. On her 80th birthday she still looked nothing like her age - she hadn’t even gone grey - the cause of a serious falling-out with a neighbour who refused to believe that she didn’t dye it. And she always refused to wear what she called ‘frumpy old-lady’ clothes.

But it was only a year or two later that the first signs of Alzheimer’s hit, and because she was otherwise ‘healthy’, she went on to 97, absolutely ravaged by that vile disease.

Now and then I hear of someone with a galloping form of dementia, who’s dead within 2 or 3 years - and I think ‘lucky them’. To me, if you’re going to get it, the sooner it’s over, the better. (My FiL had it, too, so I have far too many years’ experience.)

I probably would have said a lot younger in the past but now my mum is well into her 60s and still active and youthful, I'd say 60-something isn't old. I'd say 80 is old. My grandmother is in her 80s and has only just started to slow down and become noticeably more frail in the last couple of years.

Don't let people make you feel bad for feeling old if life's a bit intense atm

I would disagree with that. As you said, you felt better when you were older than you did in your 30s

So it wasn't age - it was stress, tiredness, relentless demands of young children. And that made you feel bad.

It didn't make you feel old - because look now, you are a decade older and you don't feel bad anymore

That's a core issue of casual (and not so casual) ageism. It's ascribing bad things to the normal aging process. And using it to describe tough times that are tough for reasons utterly unconnected to age. It's perpetuating the bad stereotypes.

Yes, with age you become more frail etc, but that's not a reason to use it as a shorthand for feeling bad when young. That perpetuates the negative ideas, reinforcing it every time it's said. That's wrong.

Most of this thread is far more positive about age, which I think is a good thing

(Except that ridiculous comment about 31, but I'm guessing that was someone just playing)

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER

Some good points RancidOldHag.
In fact a 31 year old actually doesnt know what "getting old" feels like.

A 31 may not feel great, but that is probably due to other factors- not enough rest or sleep, chronic ill health or obesity, poor diet, too many demands, being unfit.
That can happen at any age.

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER yes same with my mum she was young at heart with a positive outlook despite suffering many tragedies. She got dementia 6 years ago and is end stage at 83. Seeing her so poorly makes me envious of others who's dementia took them quicker. Her older sister had it and was gone within 2 years.

RancidOldHag I did feel old though - the physical and mental symptoms of extreme sleep deprivation and stress were comparable to the symptoms of aging. i couldn't get up off the floor when I lay down next to my youngest's cot, and struggled to get up if I sat on the floor. My joints ached and my short term memory was impacted. These are also symptoms of age related decline. If they're caused by stress and sleep deprivation they're reversible, but they are compatible. "Feeling old" is a legitimate description of how I felt (more than ten years ago). Menopause also caused a recurrence of some of those problems - again reversible now with HRT, but they eventually won't be, then I'll be old...

You're using 'old' to describe a set of feelings that you ascribe to age, but which are no such thing, because they did not appear with advancing years - indeed they disappeared when you were older.

Using the term 'old' to describe something awful but not part of ageing is wrong.

We can easily see that you felt bad and had nasty symptoms. But they were of stress, sleep deprivation etc, not age.

If you had age-related decline, then they would not have been reversed, would they?

My issue is not with how you felt, but in using age as a synonym for symptoms with an entirely different cause in a young person. It's as if it was OK to use age as a symonym for bad/difficult/unwelcome.

And that's simply not right.

I'm 51 and am starting to feel older . I feel it physically and I've noticed that a lot of things in society are aimed at the younger generation. I definitely feel like I've moved into the next stage of life. Not sure when I will feel 'old' though.

RancidOldHag physical symptoms not just feelings - and I addressed the reversible/ irreversible point (the difference between feeling old and actually being old).

I'm completely realistic about aging - I'm nearly 50 and in the past I worked in a dementia and nursing home. Ive witnessed the frightening and difficult side of aging as well as knowing and having known people who have thrived into their 80s/ "aged well".

Being "old" isn't a number of years, but when age related physical and mental decline sets in and can't be reversed a person "is" old. Its possible to "feel old" before you are old. If you can reverse it (over the course of months) you aren't yet actually old.

The physical symptoms are not inherent with ageing.

Describing a time when you feel bad because of certain symptoms (which were not caused by age) as feeling 'old' is wrong, because it perpetuates stereotypes of ageing as negative.

That's wrong, and indeed arguably illegal as ageism is now included under equalities laws.

Describing the physical symptoms of ageing in one who has the physical symptoms of ageing is one thing, and may be necessary medically or for needs assessments.

Using it as a metaphor for symptoms with a wholly different cause is wrong.

RancidOldHag yet people also say they "feel pregnant" to describe pregnancy like symptoms of perhaps bloating, indegestion, discomfort or even twinges which will pass within hours or days even having experienced pregnancy and knowing they are not currently pregnant, and knowing that pregnancy is a protected characteristic...

I think we may be talking at cross purposes - I'm saying you can be 80 and not be old; imo you're old when irreversible age related decline sets in (which can be at 40 - I have worked with patients with downs syndrome for whom this is the case and is genetic). From this standpoint I disagree that using the phrase "I feel old" is ageism any more than saying "I feel pregnant" is pregnancy discrimination.

We'll have to agree to disagree I suspect.

Does 'feeling pregnant' have the same negative connotations as feeling old?

After all, it's not an irreversible bodily change, and is positively welcomed. And if people mean premenstrual bloated/indigestion, they'd say premenstrual - indeed that's how early pregnancy symptoms are often described. It's not used to mean decrepit, past it or to describe non-specific by negative symptoms.

After all, being sleep deprived, knackered and stressed with aching joints and a bit of brain fog are all pregnancy symptoms too. But that's not the term you chose to describe how you felt - you chose 'old'

The negative messages that people have internalised are very much at the core of inappropriate stereotyping.

Old is an attitude. It's when you sit around moping and saying you can't do anything or go anywhere because you're old. It's when you become bitter.

My mum started doing it about 32. Permanently sulking.

I know people who haven't done it in their 60s. Still smiling and cheerful and active, lots of interests.

When I was 15, anyone older than 25 was old and anyone older than 40 was positively ancient.
Now I'm pushing 60, anyone older than 85 is old.

70 onwards is old but not usually elderly. I think being elderly is more about health. I work with someone in his 80s who is very sharp and sprightly whereas someone else might be quite unwell and seem elderly at 75.

My late DM was 61 when she died in January this year, and I didn't realise it at the time, but she had significantly aged over the past 18 months or so because she decided she was old, and acted accordingly i.e stopped looking after her health and essentially self-deteriorated into an early grave.

Sorry for your loss.

I am 61 this year and still think of myself as middle aged.

usually about 30 years older than I am currently.

there'll obviously come a time when almost no-one on the planet satisfies this criterion, at which point I suppose i may have to consider revising my threshold downwards a little.

[quote lollipoprainbow]@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER yes same with my mum she was young at heart with a positive outlook despite suffering many tragedies. She got dementia 6 years ago and is end stage at 83. Seeing her so poorly makes me envious of others who's dementia took them quicker. Her older sister had it and was gone within 2 years. [/quote]
I’m so sorry, @lollipoprainbow - it’s so very hard.

There was a man in my mother’s care home (where I was visiting her for almost 8 years) who wasn’t even all that old, only 70s IIRC, who would get very angry and aggressive, poor thing - throw chairs about, tip dining tables up, etc. etc. I used to feel so sorry for his wife, who visited so often, and had evidently done her best to keep him at home for as long as possible.

But one day, after just a few months, he was no longer there. I assumed they’d had to move him, because the angry and violent behaviour was a potential danger to other residents.

But no, he’d had a heart attack and died.

And all I could think was, what a blessing - both for him and for his family, who no longer had to see him so angry and unhappy, when there was nothing they could do to help him.

I would have been so thankful for a similar, earlier end for my poor mother.

Age spots, a saggy neck, a certain kind of thinness that is particular to older people, a stoop or less sure step

I'm 69, I've got the age spots, the saggy neck but unfortunately I'm still waiting for the 'thinness' that is peculiar to older people! Hoping it will happen soon.