A man is too old to wear cargo shorts the moment he’s tempted to also wear sandals paired with knee-high socks of any color.
How about white knee-high socks with stripes?
Currently 60ish. I spend a lot of time in amusement parks; I like having the extra pockets for my camera and different odds and ends. So my plan is to keep wearing them until I hit 147; since by then I will have been dead at least 70 years, I feel it would be wrong to wear them in public after that.
I thought cargo shorts remained part of the definitive “dad outfit”? Wearing them to a business setting is one thing. Wearing them at a barbecue is another.
How about knee-high compression stockings?
The older I get, the more I appreciate my cargo shorts. More pockets for those extra pair of glasses I seem to need to carry all the time.
I’m a female, and you can peel my cargo shorts off’ve my cold, dead body when I’m, like, dead. If you really want them that bad! 
Since when have cargo shorts/pants been associated with an age-group, gender or fashion alliance anyway?
Cargo shorts are awesome and anyone who says otherwise is a communist.
You know what’s even better than cargo shorts? Cargo pants. There is no such thing as too many pockets, and cargo pants provide the benefits of many pockets with additional bonuses like “concealing pasty or skinny legs” and “preventing sunburn”. 
I just turned 59.
The older I get, the fewer fucks I give. I wear whatever I want, including cargo shorts.
Not only do I wear cargo shorts in warm weather, I wear cargo pants in cold weather.
What?! In THIS thread, I asked fellow Dopers what I’m supposed to wear if I can’t wear jean shorts anymore.
The consensus seemed to be “cargo shorts”.
Now y’all are telling me I can’t wear cargo shorts?
Y’all need to make up your damn minds!
(I’m kidding of course. I like you guys.:))
Cargo shorts aren’t fashionable? Well, thank God for that. I’m 42 years old, I’ve never been fashionable for a day in my life, and I sure as hell don’t intend to start now.
So you plan on being buried in cargo shorts?
One of my brothers was known as Edusup in HS (it’s short for “Survival Ed” in Spanish) because out of his cargo pants could come any small item needed for a minor emergency. Swiss Army knife including scissors, larger scissors, thread, black spool, white spool, red spool, bandaids… Last summer we were sitting in a bar’s terrace with him and a woman trailed by a little kid came and asked “hey, you won’t happen to have a bandaid?” “Donald Duck or plain?” The nickname hasn’t held: the reputation has. He doesn’t usually zip the legs off, but that’s because he’d be losing pockets if he did.
1998, after my kids started toddling around and I was more Dad than Dude. 
I go through a pair every year or two. Right before they get retired, they can practically come to me when I call them 
27 and I’ll wear them till the day I die, heck, bury me them!
One thing I’ve never understood about “fashion” is, why do so many people get bent out of shape over what a complete stranger is wearing?
I’m 44. I don’t think I’m quite old enough to not give a shit about my appearance.
Fine - black dress shoes it is.
Regards,
Shodan
My son and I go to a lot of baseball games every year and have standardized the use of the pockets in my cargo shorts. Lower right leg pocket holds a bag of peanuts, middle right leg pocket holds napkins, Lower left leg pocket holds pitch tracking notebook and pencil, & cet…
It’s standardized to the point that when he was helping me do some home repairs and my hands were holding something in place I told him, “Grab the 3/4” socket for me. It’s in the peanut pocket."
I’m the same age and am quite old enough not to worry about the Business Insider opinion of my shorts when I’m out and about. Obviously we’re not talking about wearing cargo shorts to weddings, funerals and job interviews. There’s a big zone between “not giving a shit” and “continuing to wear comfortable and useful stuff even after the blogs make tut-tut noises”. Brush your hair, wear a clean shirt and put on the shorts you want to wear.
I haven’t really heard a decent reason not to wear them yet. It goes from “You look like a toddler” (huh?) and “you’ll never get laid” (married) to “you’ll look like a frat guy” (frat guys don’t get laid?). I’m told that the alternative to looking like a toddler is to wear shorts that are literally the same cut as a schoolboy uniform’s shorts. The stupid Business Insider column says they might touch my knees (gasp!), that the weight might pull them down on my hips (buy clothes that fit and/or wear a belt) and that, uh, I don’t need that many pockets? The whole thing sounds as though someone arbitrarily decided a year or two ago that we shouldn’t wear them any longer and everyone’s scrambling to fall in line.
Most of my shorts are cargo shorts. I have some that are nicer, that can be worn to a (BBQ-type) party. If the weather’s nice in the summer, the leather gloves that are on & off go into the left pocket & an (GoPro, Garmin) action cam & it’s mounting rig goes into the right one before/after flying.
The ones I own without them just scream “Dad shorts” ::shudder:: & get worn much less frequently.