Kitchen Garden Forum

During the course of conversation today, somebody mentioned a person in their early seventies as being elderly. I don't consider that "elderly" at all. A TV presenter reminded us recently that The Queen was now becoming "elderly" at age 87.

So with people all living longer now, at what age do you become officially ELDERLY?. Is it a state defined by age, when you start to become physically or mentally incapacitated, or when you creek when you bend down to weed?

It's a horrible patronising phrase! I've never liked being pigeon-holed. The first time I received a mailing from SAGA at just turned 50 was a bit of a knock back, so I think you become 'elderly' when someone thinks you've just entered a targeted market and they want to sell you something...

Otherwise I'll just keep going like my Mum who's busy in her greenhouse with bedding plants and tomatoes at 89. Her brain, she says, is still 21 it's just the body that lets her down!

MW

I've always somewhat lightheartedly been of the opinion that somebody is elderly if they're more than 20 years older than I am !

You never think that you'll be "old". It comes as somewhat of a shock when you suddenly find that you're becoming an invisible part of the population (except of course when the politicians realise they need your vote !).

You never become "elderly". It's just a mealy-mouthed euphemism coined by younger people who somehow think that "old" is not PC. Remember the now defunct "senior citizen" tag, invented for a similar patronising reason. I'm not "elderly", I'm just older than I was. My beautiful granddaughters who are half Guyanese are proudly "black" and not some offensive PC nonsense like "ethnic".

Rant over for the day

I agree with most of the above comments, but just for fun this is my rule of (athritic) thumb.
55-70 Middle aged
70-85 Elderly
85-100+ Old
My M-in-L was 102 when she died but was mentally in her 40s until the end.
I'm coming up to 80 but still enjoy playing with trains!

Well i still have a boyish attitude to life, (although one or two of you might have noticed that), and i hope i can carry that through to my grave.

I would hate to get grumpy in years to come.

.

Some people are born elderly and others are still young at 100

There have to be some advantages to getting older and playing your age off against 'youngers', my mum sometimes says the most outrageous things and smiles sweetly and nobody is quite sure if she means it or not! She has a lot of fun doing that... and who am I to stop her pleasure at that age.

And as you get older than you were (nice phrase!) you cease to be concerned about what others think of you.

MW

I suppose I started admitting to being elderly when I stopped being asked for proof of entitlement to concessionary tickets.

my grandson asked me last week "granddad whats it like being old" the response I came up with was what do you mean I am only 28 I was at one time but it was 36 years ago

My son came home from infants school and asked me what it was like in the "olden days" - I told him to ask his grandad. That is quite a long time ago now though, but I'm certainly not elderly.

I have often wondered this myself and especially this year, as I hit sixty years old. (where have the years gone??) I certainly don't class myself as "Elderly".
I remember reading in our local paper, an account of a fatal road accident in Hull, where the victim was described as an elderly woman. She was 53, a similar age to myself at the time. I found it puzzling to say the least.

These days, it is often difficult to put an accurate age on folks. My Grandma's looked like Grandma's....they dressed like old ladies of their generation by the time they were fifty and had had much harder lives than my generation have experienced. Today, we wear clothes which are fashionable (not always a good thing with some folks!) and have abandoned perms and blue rinses in favour of much younger dress and hairstyles.

Having said I don't feel sixty, what am I supposed to feel? Who knows? Motherwoman said her Mum feels she is still 21 in her head and I said the same thing myself only last week! I'm still as daft as I was in my twenties.
Perhaps this is the answer...mental attitude?

I meant to add, that age isn't important...age is only numbers.

Elaine

When I was a child I so wanted blue or pink hair & thought you had to be old to have it so wished I'd age a bit quicker! Silly me - you can have any colour at any age but it doesn't look near as distinguished as it did on the older ladies around in my youth. I'm still hoping it will make a comeback - just have to go grey first!

Westi