Image by Merve Akkus on Pexels.
Recently the WSJ ran an article about people in their 20s who feel middle-aged. One man was mayor of a small town at 26. He said he felt 34.
What people are doing is reacting to stereotypes of their ages. And it is true that younger people face a divide. They’re accepting more responsibility at work. They’re planning for the future. But they’re not feeling ready. They’re not getting married.
One woman in the article is just 24. She worries about buying a house and saving for retirement.
When I was 24 I didn’t think about retirement. Back then women had fewer work options so I worried about finding a new job. Buying a house was something other people did. People told me I’d eventually fall in love and get married, but I was too busy traveling and exploring my options. So they predicted a sad path to old age.
Yet when I was old enough to be considered “retirement age,” I had plenty of savings and had been a homeowner for quite a while. I even had a dog, something else I never expected. I never did get a husband or children but as I got older, I was more relieved than anxious. Family was something I never understood. Unless they were exceptionally supportive, why bother? I established values around family, medical care, life and a lot more.
I talk about this in my book. It’s based on my routines in standup comedy, which I didn’t start till I was well into “retirement age.”
The problem is, you feel a certain way. You have physical and mental symptoms. And you associate those feelings and symptoms with certain ages.
I have a friend in her mid-to-late forties who likes to eat dinner around 5 or 5:30. She’s in bed by nine and she gets up at five. You could say she follows old people’s hours. But why not just say, “She eats an early dinner and goes to bed earlier. That’s her circadian rhythm.”
I know someone who started several successful businesses in his early twenties. If I were going to stereotype, I’d say he was 25 going on 50 when I met him. He just gained a lot of wisdom about business at an early age.
Of course, I’ve also known people who never grew up. They didn’t get jobs that led to meaningful careers. Some of them got married and often the marriage didn’t work out. They weren’t ready.
Some people can’t stand for long periods when they’re forty or fifty. Some are performing athletically into their 80s and 90s. Are we going to say that one has the body of an old person and another has the body of a thirty-year-old?
Right now on Medium I just read two articles about getting old. Each was written by someone claiming to be sixtyish. One article focused on the joys of getting older. The author was still healthy and active.
Right on the same list was an article about how aging is brutal. The author had a long list of physical ailments and a sense of loss
I can’t relate to either one. I don’t believe that age confers wisdom and perspective. And I don’t know any sixtyish people who had the aches and pains of the other writer.
Why bring age into it? Sure, if you’re a certain age, you’re more likely to have certain physiological problems. There’s deterioration of the body just like there’s a wearing down of machines. But even cars age differently. And there’s no hard and fast rule about how aging changes the body.
When someone says, “You’re doing this like an old lady,” or, “You’re walking like an old man,” you’re hearing a stereotype. The stereotypes of getting older are very rarely positive; if they are (“old people are wiser” or “old people are nicer”) they’re usually dead wrong. There are lots of stupid old people. And there are lots of grinchy people like me who don’t fit the chirpy-cheery image of a “sweet old lady.”
