How Did 81 Suddenly Become Young?

I recently went to my doctor’s office and we talked about someone in my family who had been taken ill. He asked the person’s age, and when I said 81, he looked at me and said, “That’s young.” Young? The wheels in my head started spinning because when I was young, 30 was old, 40 sounded ancient, and 60 was practically prehistoric. Now I’m being told 81 is young. How the hell did we get here?

Then the receptionist tells me she’s 71 and retiring, and I thought that I guess she’s still working off the 19th-century German clock. There is a German clock. Germany introduced the world’s first government old-age social insurance program in 1889, and it initially set the pension age at 70 before lowering it to 65 in 1916. When the United States later chose 65 for Social Security, it wasn’t because scientists had determined that 65 was officially old. It was a practical and actuarial decision.

The funny thing is that we kept the number while everything around it changed. People are living longer, staying active longer and apparently refusing to act old. Gerontologists now use terms such as “young-old,” “middle-old” and “old-old” because 65 and 85 can be two completely different worlds.

And here’s another sign that the definition of “old” has changed: sexually transmitted infections aren’t just a young person’s problem anymore. Canadian surveillance has found increases in STI rates among older age groups, including a rise in reported infectious syphilis among people 60 and older. Apparently, these baby boomers really do want to be forever young.

As Joan Collins put it, “Age is just a number” unless, of course, you’re a bottle of wine.

Maybe she’s right. If 81 is young, I’m starting to get seriously nervous about what they call 100. A person who reaches 100 is officially a centenarian. Centenarian? That sounds less like an age and more like a rare Italian cheese, an ancient gladiator, or someone who has finally unlocked the secret level of old age.