The Language of Aging

Don’t call me Senior and NEVER call me Sweetie!

Some people tell me I’m too sensitive. But if I’m not an apple doll (see above) then I NEVER want to hear someone call me adorable. I hate the term senior all day long. It labels and minimizes me, as if who I am in society is less than my younger counterparts and have little to offer now.

Looking around online, I found that a number of institutes, including the Associated Press, which offer these guidelines, “use inclusive and respectful language, such as ‘older adults or older people.” They and others are asking their writers to consider how they write and how they speak to this huge, and growing demographic of older adults. This is good.

We are mostly Baby Boomers—that group of us born after World War II, between 1946 and 1964. We are that generation who fought for women’s rights (think birth control, abortion rights, having credit cards), and protested the Vietnam War.

We grew up either listening to Buddy Holly or the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones. We saw Richard Nixon resign. We experimented with LSD, uppers and downers. It was a time of experimentation as well as social change. And now again, we fight for women’s rights, gay rights, civil rights and social equality and justice.

So drop those pathetic words used by the younger adults to make us look and feel small. We are most definitely not small.

No more:

· Senior/senior citizen

· Elderly (call me an elder if I qualify, but I’m NOT elderly)

· Grandmotherly/grandfatherly (when parenting isn’t the story)

· Still working ( well yeah!)

· The aged

· Old person/frail/weak/vulnerable

· 80 years YOUNG!! (Don’t you DARE)

· Young at heart

· If being old isn’t part of the story, don’t use it!

· Anti-aging (REALLY? I mean, how the hell does that work??)

· Golden years, past my prime, spry, zesty, feisty, active, spirited and STILL full of life.

You can call me Al:

I’ve had the old tune from Paul Simon ear-worming me. You can call me anything, you can call me Al, but don’t call me Senior or sweetie, or adorable.

I’m 73 in a few minutes and I’m simply an older adult who’s enjoying all the freedoms that come with being an old woman. Yay me!