It’s funny how your perceptions of things change as you get older. There was a time when the Baby Boomer generation’s mantra was “Never trust anyone over 30.” I suppose this probably made good sense to many young people at that time because when you’re in a drug induced state anything sounds good. They probably would’ve cheered being told to never trust anyone with nose hair. Now that most Baby Boomers are approaching sixty are they going have a different chant? Is the new mantra going to be “Never trust anyone who’s not eligible for Social Security?”
Recently a survey was done by Home Instead Senior Care and conducted by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion at Marist College. During the study 1,235 adults 18 years of age and older in the United States were interviewed by telephone and asked “At what age do you consider someone to be old?"
Unfortunately they didn’t need to conduct a study to find this out. They just needed to talk to me. My father played golf regularly into his 80s. His golf group consisted of himself, two other men in their 80s, a man who was 90 and a very nice man who was 69-years-old. You would think that a man fast approaching 70 would have the respect of those in their 80s and 90s, but alas it was not so in this golf group. With these guys their youngest member, who was a great grandfather, was referred to as “the kid” by his golfing partners. He would often hear stories about when they were young like him. I once witnessed them telling their youngest member “Wait until you get to be old like us.”
I often wondered if at that age they passed around a brown bag containing a bottle of Geritol while they golfed.
“Hey, you’re not passing the bag properly.”
“Yeah, don’t bogart the Geritol.”
The results of the study showed Gen Xers believed being 71 made you old, Baby Boomers felt that 77 was the magical elderly number and the Greatest Generation didn’t believe you were old until you had reached 81 years of age. Another interesting aspect of the study was how men and women perceived the age of being old very differently. Men seem to believe that someone was old at age 70 years, while women said it was 76 years. I wonder if that’s because most men will admit to their age while some women could be 88-years-old and believe they’re only 76. I’m sure everyone has a relative like that in their family.
The survey results also showed that most people would like to live to be 90 years old. Most only expected they would make it to be 83 years old. The average life expectancy in the United States is only 78.4 years. I guess there’s going to be a lot of disappointed people departing this world.
Another interesting result of the survey was that people from every generation had the desire and anticipation of living well beyond the age they felt was 'old.' I guess that makes sense. I can see people of my generation arguing about age.
“We may be the same age, but I’m not as old as you.”
“You’re older than me even if we’re the same age. I mean just look at you.”
“Why don’t you just go and look at yourself you old geezer.”
“Who you calling a geezer you geezer.”
There would be a momentary pause as their minds drifted.
“I got to go to the bathroom.”
“I forget where it is.”
“That’s okay I forget where I parked my car.”
“You think that’s bad, I don’t even remember if I drove.”
Don’t forget there’s an old saying that goes if being old was easy, young people would do it.
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