Each generation has a different view on when old age gets under way, but if my kids’ generation is correct, time is about to catch up with me ...
F
or boomers, old age begins at 75, according to a new survey, while gen X considers the start date of decrepitude to be 70, and millennials are a little stricter, at 63. These are all reasonable positions, and then you get to gen Z, who know nothing about anything: they say it’s 53.
By coincidence, I’d been thinking about this anyway at the weekend, after dancing so exuberantly I ripped my own clothes. I didn’t think that was ideal: it did raise concerns about what I must have looked like in the moment. But I figured as long as I stopped doing it before I got old, it was probably fine – and thought (being gen X) that gave me about 17 years. It turns out that as far as the youngsters are concerned, I have just over three months.
I’m not even going to count the things that would be considered undignified at veteran age. (I will, though, pause to admire that euphemism for old that is always affixed professionally – the “veteran documentary maker”; the “veteran magistrate”. What war have we fought? Is it, in fact, life?) I’m also not even going to countenance dressing appropriately for old age.
