Are you elderly?

Well, I may be an 'older' person but at least I am retired, can please myself and am not just retiring at 96 like some people (see other thread)

I got thinking about this last night. I was on the phone to DD, who is 43. I was commiserating with her about needing reading glasses and the fact that she has recently bought a reading light. We also discussed that she sometimes has mild symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome, something I have.

I suddenly realised that, regardless of age, you are elderly when you and one of your children have a bonding session talking about your shared symptoms of aging.

I was 70 this year but I do not class myself as elderly I am just older.

My passport photo taken 5 years ago makes me look like I am in a Texas prison....pale, no smile, staring like a mugshot straight into the camera (not that I have ever had a mugshot).

I am in my late 50's and recently someone offered to get the local AGE UK to come around to do a energy assessment of my home.

Late 50's, elderly, really?

I just feel we can't have it all ways. If we feel as fit as a middle aged person, perhaps we shouldn't get the perks.

Btw, I am seventy-five and elderly.

I'm already retired, not yet entitled to a free tv licence and haven't claimed my free bus pass - why so sarky Notme? What have any of these things got to do with how we feel, age-wise?

I suppose as so many of us don't feel we are elderly, we should be refusing our bus passes and free tv licences. And we should be quite amenable to the government forever pushing the penshionable age further and further away.

annodomini I got that description at 27, just 28 when the baby was born.

DD teased me with the 'had a fall' phrase when I tried to walk down a steep damp grassy bank with smooth soled shoes and my feet went from under me. She won't do it again

Yes, and if they tell other people that you've 'had a fall' rather than 'fallen over', you're definitely elderly/old...

??

One way to find out if you are old is to fall down in front of a lot of people
If they laugh, you're still young
If they panic and start running to you, you're old

(Borrowed, with thanks, from "Silversurfers")

At the age of 30, in my first pregnancy, I was (hilariously) classed as 'elderly primigravida', a term which, I think, is now out of use as so many women now wait until they're over 30 to start a family.

ps
I don't think I'm quite at that stage yet.
One definition is "decrepit; very old or outdated.
replacements for a geriatric locomotive fleet"

I'm over 80 and don't mind being elderly.
A man on another forum classified himself as "geriatric"

At the risk of upsetting anyone over 80, generally speaking that's the age I would term as 'elderly' I am 64 which at one time would have been classed as elderly .I think generally we olderlies(new word?) are around the 60s ,70s , no ageist offence meant to anyone . ?

I'm only elderly when I'm faced with umpteen steps at railways stations!!! Otherwise I'm just 'me'

I m 62. I looked at my bus ticket the other day, which said "elderly concession " "ridiculous,' I thought. I'm not elderly!!

I don't regard myself as elderly considering menopausal symptoms are still very much in evidence, until I get out of bed first thing that is, when I do believe I creak I seem to have a much stiffer neck these days, pillows never seem quite right, one always gets thrown out after reading last thing. However, I try and do that rolling neck from right to left and then left to right exercise as per yoga instuctions when I get up, oh that I was better with some of the more advanced moves that ensure greater flexibility. However, having read your post PRINTMISS, I intend to adopt your pragmatic approach to life.

Well, I got a telling off from my mother (she's in her 80's, ill health, 'can't be bothered' to do anything most of the time and talks at me, not to me, etc) when I referred to her as being 'elderly'.

It was not meant to be derogatory in any way, and I thought I was being polite. When I asked what I should have said, she didn't know, however she refers to herself as being elderly when it suits her (when she wants attention).

Everyone is so PC these days you can't say right for saying wrong!

I admitted to be elderly, but why all the fuss? We grow old, we age, it is a word that describes some of us who are older. Just a word, forget about it.

I'm a mere 64 and do not consider myself as elderly, not would I when I'm 70, 80 or 90! However for clinical purposes there is no getting away from it....as our bodies age internally and well as externally...I notice that when I have a hospital/Doctor appointment I am always referred to as elderly on the notes....Fine with me...until they try and turn off my life support because I'm old and not worth it! In the words of Teresa May...I think they will find I can be a B....ldy difficult woman if it came to that!! You are as young as you feel as far as I am concerned ...."Elderly" is not in my vocabluary.

At this time of the morning with sleep elusive I feel very elderly indeed. .

My DMIL was 94 when she died. An older friend of hers was distraught because "she's nobbut a young 'un". And I have a very spritely uncle who's coming up to his hundredth birthday and still helping look after his "elderly neighbours", so perhaps we should raise it to 100!

When my DF died at the age of 92, after a brief illness, he was still living independently, though nothing of driving nearly 100 miles to visit DS and me and was an active committee member of three local organisations. So lets raise 90 to 95.

I think proper elderly is over 90 these days!