This has always been a very elastic question, proved by a recent Pew Research Center poll done in May of this year. It noted that on average, adults between the ages of 30 and 49 think old age begins at 69. People who are currently 50-64 believe old age starts at 72. Responders who are 65 and older say old age begins at 74. However, they did not poll my nine year old granddaughter, who thinks one is over the hill at the, for her, far distant age of 20.
A few years back I was with my younger grandchildren on Halloween. They were all done up in costume, and were unhappy that I was not suitably attired as well. I assured them I was in costume as I was the Incredible Shrinking Grandmother. They were obviously skeptical, but they took me at my word. A few weeks later my daughter was sorting through toys with her youngest child who was having a hard time giving up the baby toys that he had outgrown. As a last resort he commented, “But Grammy is shrinking,” hoping to save the play things for when he too began to shrink..
This explains why the actual idea of age is kicked down the road as we approach the inevitable. The general view of old age, at whatever year that strikes, involves shrinking in both body and mind. And the shrinking mind reverts, seemingly, to embrace a childishness one thought one had outgrown. There is not much we can do about the shrinking frame, but we do have the capacity to at least fight the shrinking mind. Perhaps it can all be summed up by a comment from one of the funniest columnist of all times, Erma Bombeck: “Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.” Let’s grow old, whenever that may be, with joy in our hearts and a cheesecake on our plate.