What is "older"?

Inspired by this thread, what age is “older”? Has it changed through the years, both for you personally and for society as a whole?

For me “older” is some years at least a decade or so older than me and young is younger than me. The only thing that changes each year is the numbers of people in each group. There are a lot more young folk around now than there used to be.

On a related note, for those of our posters most advanced in years, when, if yet, do you feel your age significantly began to be a source of disability?

Yeah, that’s like, really old. :slight_smile:

I often use “older” when I actually mean “elderly”, because the former seems less likely to offend. “Older” is anyone who is in their 60s. “Elderly” doesn’t start until someone is in their mid-70s.

My definition of “older” has most definitely changed as I grow older myself. (I will be 57 in February and feel absolutely fine, so far.)

That said, I think what monstro said. I guess, older is whatever comes on the heels of middle-aged, so early to mid 60s seems about right. Ask me again in ten years though… :smiley:

‘‘Older’’ seems to be a health ***and ***age thing. Respiratory or rheumatological problem may make a 50-60 year old comparable to a more healthy 70 or even 80 year old.

That’s true too; it really does depend on the individual. I go on regular hikes and events with my local Sierra Club group, and there are some very active, healthy people in their 60s and 70s. So, they’re older (or even “elderly”) but have the health and stamina of people several decades younger

On the other hand, I also know several people my age and younger who are so beset by chronic health problems that they are incapable of normal mobility and act really “old.”

Some kids asked me about life in the 70’s and I didn’t even have to yell “Get off my lawn!” because by the time Granny was finished with the stories they were running away screaming.

Ah yes, the 70s, the terrible time before I knew what a computer was.

What I find curious is how when I was a teenager I thought people that were 35 looked really old (their face). These days, 40 usually doesn’t look old to me—until you put someone who’s 20 right next to them.

Most of us can hope to live to around 80 if we’re lucky, so 40 would be literally middle aged. I’d say that “elderly” is anything over 65, as it’s hard to draw a line and 65 was/is a common retirement age. “Older” is pretty vague, I’d probably think of someone over 60.

At work there is a group sitting together who range from 59 to 70. I don’t think that, for us, 60 is the cutoff because we still give the “baby” shit for being old.

Hard to say. I’m only 76 and I drop by the Senior Centre occasionally to check out some of the programs they’re offering but I don’t sign up because I always feel that I’m too young for that stuff…maybe in a couple of years.

Heh. A pertinent article!

Yeah, I remember a couple of incidents in my 20s where I thought mid 30s was “old”:

  1. Working in a tech consulting firm where the average age was mid 20s and everyone marveled at how our HR director was really attractive for a 35 year old.

  2. Partying down at the Jersey Shore with my boys (again, in my early 20s), I was so taken aback that the woman that I had just hit it off with was 38 with a 19 year old kid that I didn’t hook up with her until I met her at a completely different club the following weekend.
    Oddly enough, at 42, I still don’t really feel “older”. Maybe “older” in the sense that a college senior is older than a college freshman. Not older in the sense that your grandfather is older than you. Then again, I’m part of a generation raised on Adam Sandler, Vince Vaughn, Judd Apatow and Will Farrell movies about 30 and 40 something year old man-boys.

My definition of Older is that we grow older from the moment we are born and continue to get older as we live. I think of the ER on older to Stand for Emergency Room. When it is too late to be helped then, you no longer get older, and one can say he/she was old! So’ Old’ is in the past tense.

I will be 57 in February as well! I’ve begun to feel it. If I overexert on the weekend, Monday is rough. I’ve had a couple of gout attacks, need a hearing aid turned up to eleven, and had a stent placed in a coronary artery after a mild heart attack. I used to use a chainsaw all day on a Sunday to take down problematic trees. This past weekend we paid professionals to deal with a few trees.

I remember the days when “don’t trust anybody over 30” was a mantra. Nowadays, it’s more like “don’t trust anybody under 50” and even some of those over 50 are “too young” to relate to.

It’s a sliding scale and shifts upward as one survives further.

I can’t argue with anything already said in the thread. I just turned 73 earlier this month. I have begun slowing down! :smiley:

One thing I have observed, especially in movies, is that in the '30’s and '40’s most people over 30 looked “old.” That began to shift upward so that in later years ('80’s onward) you have trouble guessing the actual ages of the actors involved and are sometimes even shocked to see how “old” somebody is.