When Do We Become Old?

Olderhood Unfolding

Yesterday I was talking to a friend who spent much of his working life as an HGV mechanic. Recently, he has returned to work a year after retirement and has been learning how to carry out MOT inspections. Someone looked at him and said, “I thought you had retired. Why are you bothering to learn something new? Aren’t you too old for that sort of thing?”

The comment stayed with me because it captures something curious about how we think about ageing. On the one hand, many people are reluctant to describe themselves as old. We prefer terms such as midlife, older adult or older person. We talk about ageing well, staying active and keeping our options open. Yet on the other hand, there is often an assumption that once people reach their sixties or seventies they should stop learning, changing or embarking on new ventures.

I was reminded of this again when thinking about a friend who has recently decided to learn Italian. She has always loved Italy and plans to spend time there next year, immersing herself in the language and culture. Rather than waiting until she arrives, she has started learning now. When I completed my doctorate at 64, people often seemed surprised. Nobody said I was too old, but there was often an unspoken question underneath their reaction. Why pursue a doctorate at that age? Why invest years in studying and research when retirement was supposedly just around the corner?

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My response was always simple: why wouldn’t I?

At what age are we expected to stop learning? At what age are we expected to stop becoming?

When I was researching later life for my doctorate, I came across the traditional categories used in gerontology. People aged 65 to 74 were often described as the “young-old”, those aged 75 to 84 as the “old-old”, and those over 85 as the “oldest-old”. These classifications reflected the realities of an earlier generation, when life expectancy was shorter and the experience of ageing looked very different from today.

Many people in their sixties and seventies are now travelling, volunteering, caring for grandchildren, starting businesses, writing books, studying, learning new skills and contributing to their communities in countless ways. The lives they lead often bear little resemblance to the stereotypes that still shape many assumptions about old age.

At the same time, I sometimes wonder whether we have stretched the concept of midlife beyond usefulness. The idea became even more popular following discussions about the so-called hundred-year life. If people are likely to live longer, perhaps midlife extends further than it once did. Yet there comes a point where the label begins to feel less like a description and more like a refusal to acknowledge where we are.

If someone is seventy, are they really in midlife? Only if they expect to live to 140.

Perhaps the popularity of the term tells us something important. Midlife feels positive. It suggests possibility, potential and time ahead. Old age, by contrast, is often associated with decline. If old means frail, dependent, irrelevant or diminished, it is hardly surprising that people resist the label.

But what if old simply means having lived for a long time?

What if it describes experience rather than decline, perspective rather than limitation, depth rather than loss?

As I approach my sixty-ninth birthday, I find myself increasingly comfortable with the idea that I am becoming old. Not because I feel finished, and certainly not because I have stopped growing, learning or changing. Quite the opposite. I am still curious about the world. I am still writing, studying, questioning and exploring new ideas. Ageing has not taken those things away from me. If anything, it has given me greater freedom to pursue them.

This is why I think the language matters.

If people like me refuse to call ourselves old at 69, what are we teaching those who are 59, 49 or 39 about ageing?

What message are we sending if we cling to the label of midlife long after it no longer fits?

Are we inadvertently suggesting that old age is something shameful? Something to resist? Something to deny?

The irony is that many of us are already living examples of a different story. We are learning new skills, forming new friendships, exploring new interests and finding new ways to contribute. We are not withdrawing from life. We are continuing to engage with it.

Perhaps the challenge is not to avoid becoming old. Perhaps the challenge is to redefine what old means.

What if old age were understood not as a failure to remain young, but as a stage of life with its own opportunities, freedoms and forms of growth? What if we recognised that people can remain curious, creative and engaged long after society expects them to slow down? What if claiming the word old became a way of expanding what others imagine is possible?

I am not suggesting that everyone in their sixties or seventies should describe themselves as old. People can choose the language that feels right to them.

But I do wonder whether our collective discomfort with the word reveals something important. We seem happy to celebrate longevity, yet reluctant to acknowledge what longevity eventually brings.

Perhaps the question is not when we become old.

Perhaps the more important question is why we are so afraid of the answer.

Because if we are fortunate, becoming old is not something that has gone wrong.

It is what happens when life continues.

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