I don’t know how many other people caught this yesterday but it jumped out at me from the computer screen. The London couple that won $17-million in Saturday’s Lotto 6/49 came forward. He is 73 and she is 60 and CTV, the Free Press and others called them “elderly.”
Whether it’s the fact that 20-somethings are writing these headlines and stories so they have no empathy for anyone over 50, or if they’re just so busy that the details were overlooked, there’s still no excuse for calling a woman who isn’t yet eligible for a senior’s discount, elderly.
In my experience, you start really thinking about your age around 30 and then it just intensifies! A little thing like calling a woman elderly before her time can really stick with her. I feel bad for her if she read it! Time marches on quickly enough without anyone hustling it forward.
Last week a compliment struck me kind of funny and it wasn’t meant to be. A 41-year-old listener told me he trusts me to deliver the news because he’s been listening to me “since I was a kid”! Our age gap was a great divide when I was on air at CKSL and he was a 12 year old school boy. But now that we’re both adults, to him I’m still a lot older. To me, he’s slightly younger!
Hey if someone thinks I’m doing a good job, I’m tickled to hear it. I guess these little wince-worthy moments are bound to arrive more often now that I’m in the second half of my mid-life crisis! But if someone calls me elderly when I’m 60, they’re going to hear about it.
I’m much happier when someone says “You don’t look that old!”
I have been eligible for senior discounts for several years.
A couple of weeks ago a 60 year old was injured and the tv reporter called him an elderly man….I cringed and pointed it out to my husband who is just over 60 and we both figured it had to be a ‘kid’ who was reporting lol – young whippersnapper!!
The age gap thing is a funny one… my youngest sister and I have 8 years between us. When she was 12, I was a ‘grown up’ going to college. It took her a long time to not see the age gap, dare I say until she turned 30.
I find the emotional aspect of aging to be confusing. I don’t like it. I feel young still, like I’m in my 20’s, until I run into somebody that age, and realize I’m not.
A friend of ours, Helen Moase, is 83. And she STILL bristles at the word “elderly”, in any application. So there you go. Speaking of forever young, my hubby Rob was surprised and a little thrilled to learn that Jerry Seinfeld was born the same month, same year as him. “59? What’s the deal with that?!?” LOL
Who ARE these people?! Elderly has an air of feebleness to it and as we all know, there are “elderly” people who are more active and fit, in body and in mind, than some 35-year-olds. Go Helen!