Who You Callin Elderly

In this thought-provoking episode of You Still Have Time, hosts Hope and Harold take a closer look at the labels society uses for older adults and ask a simple but important question: Who are you calling elderly?

Drawing on personal experiences, research, and a healthy dose of humor, they explore how terms like elderly, senior citizen, older adult, and even geezer shape the way people see themselves and are perceived by others. The conversation examines age stereotypes, the impact of language on confidence and behavior, and why many people reject labels that suggest frailty or decline.

Hope and Harold also discuss how different cultures view aging, often associating it with wisdom, respect, and life experience rather than limitation. Along the way, they challenge listeners to think about how society categorizes people by age and whether those labels help or harm.

Join the discussion as they explore the power of words, the realities of growing older, and why staying active, engaged, and relevant matters at every stage of life.

Key topics include:

•  The meaning and perception of the term elderly
•  How age-related labels influence self-image and behavior 
•  Research on age stereotypes and cognitive performance 
•  Cultural differences in attitudes toward aging 
•  Why language matters when talking about older adults 
•  Celebrating longevity, experience, and continued growth

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Transcript

hello, and welcome to You Still Have Time. We're your hosts. I'm Hope. And I'm Harold. And we wanna welcome all of you, the newcomers and the ones who have been here many times before. Thank you for listening to us. I hope that you've enjoyed things you've heard in the past, and I hope that you'll enjoy today's podcast as well, podcast episode.

Well, today we're calling our episode Who You Callin' Elderly? And because you know that this podcast is geared towards people who are, let's say, 60 and above, older adults. And y- lately, Harold and I have been seeing and hearing how we older adults are referred to just generally and in the media and all of that.

So- And I, and I guess [00:01:00] when, when we were younger adults, it didn't seem to bother us as much. But now how many of you have been watching television, usually the news, and they recall a, an event where this elderly person, something happens, either they're sh- struck by a, you know, a vehicle or something happens to a, quote, elderly person, and the person is younger than you are.

And what's your first response? That's not elderly. Or, or g- give them the example of someone, uh- Oh. L- my friend Sally. So I'm, uh, in preparing for the podcast, I was asking people, you know, "You know, how do you like to be called? Um, you know, do you wanna be called elderly?" And she was like, "No." She said, "In fact, I changed the way I cross streets, "because I could just see the, the news headline, 'Elderly woman killed as she crosses the street against,' you know, 'traffic.'"

And she says, "I don't wanna be referred to as elderly," [00:02:00] because elderly is someone else. Right. I mean, I think that in our mind, I mean, I don't have the dictionary definition of elderly, but- I'll look it up ... but I usually associate elderly with frailty, uh, uh, maybe someone who is in, in need of, uh, care in a facility.

I mean, in my mind, that's elderly. You can't necessarily determine Uh, a category of age just by your chronological age, because we certainly know people who are in their 80s and even in their 90s who no one would consider elderly. Okay. So I don't know why we didn't look up the definition of this word before we started, started, uh, the podcast, but it says that, "The term elderly generally describes people who are in the later stages of life, typically referring to individuals aged 65 and older."[00:03:00] 

That's wrong. What dictionary is that? We gotta call the publisher. That's Google. Uh- Oh, okay ... however, they do give an however. "Because aging affects everyone differently, there is no single universal definition, and the term is often broken down into subcategories." Really? So then they give these age classifications.

Young-old, or early elderly, ages 65 to 74. Old-old, or late elderly, 75 and older. And the oldest old- This is crazy. Oh, okay. A- ages 85 and older. Now this came from Google. I, I went and I Googled and I said, "What does elderly mean?" That, that- And this is what they've given ... the oldest old. That's ridiculous.

Yeah. But anyway, it says that in recent years, the terminology used to describe this [00:04:00] demographic has evolved. While elderly is still widely used in the Merriam-Webster dictionary and medical context, many advocacy groups and healthcare providers prefer using older or adults or seniors. Okay. So yeah, so what do you wanna be called?

We, we s- as we were doing the research for this podcast, we s- so came across a lot of different names- ... and for, for us, and I'm sure you've heard 'em. Of course, the seniors, the elders, the aged, uh, people of a certain age. Those in their golden years. Right. Uh- Over the hill. Yes, some of the more unflattering ones, old farts- Right

and geezers. Ancient. Yeah. Old folks, old-timers, you know, with the emphasis on the old, of course. Right. Right. But I don't know, in, in Harold and my circle, and we certainly know a [00:05:00] lot of people, you know, within our age group, um, I don't think any of them refer to themselves as elderly. Uh, they might say senior citizen.

Right, or older. I mean, certainly we, we know that we are older. Yes. Especially when we walk into a room and we're the eldest in the room. Right. So, uh, we're not trying to deny that, but I guess we resent the categorization. Yeah. And, and you know, it used to be a time, at least in my memory, maybe because I wasn't older then, I didn't, you know, make much note of it, but there used to be, like, children, young people, you know, young adults, middle agers, and, and s- older adults or senior citizens or something.

They would say senior citizens, I think. And now, you know, things are j- like broken up. You know, you got boomers and Gen Z-ers and Gen X-ers and, you know, all of, all of these terms, and nobody really [00:06:00] knows what they mean. But for, for us older adults, people who have lived longer, I think that we have the right to be called w- you know, things that are flattering and things that we want to be called.

And you know, our question when we started talking about this is does it really matter? And- And we're finding that in the research, yes, it does matter. It, it changes the way we as older citizens, older people how we see ourselves they've, they've actually done studies and they have found that sometimes if you call a person, or I guess a group Uh, older, that they s- they adapt the behavior of an older person.

They walk slower, and it, it sounds [00:07:00] ridiculous, but I can, uh... I guess you can envision if someone says, "Oh, well, you're, you're older. You shouldn't be doing this," after a while you're like, "Okay, well, you're, you're right" Maybe I shouldn't be. Maybe I shouldn't be. Yeah. So- And so yeah, so they've done all this research, and they've found that, as Harold said, if, if people are constantly put into ca- these, what they call negative age categories, they s- they start performing differently.

And it also says that when they're reminded of their age group, they perform sig- significantly worse on, like, memory tests or cognitive tests or, or physical strength tests. So it, it just, it's like a self-facili- fulfilling prophecy that someone calls you elderly, and, "Oh, you're, you know, y- we know elderly people like you."

And then they give [00:08:00] you a test on, you know, a cognitive test, for example, and, and you don't perform well, but then if they didn't do that, the research says that if you took the test the next day and someone said, "Hello, Mr. or Mrs. Jones," or whoever you are, uh, you know, "We have this test for you to take," that you would perform better.

That, I think that's really interesting. Th- there's something else we learned about. It's called the relative newness shock, and I think it refers to people who are just entering the o- Older years ... right, typically ages 60 to 70, and they have experienced the highest levels of stereotypical threat and anxiety.

And Hope, you were saying that, your, your thought about it is that as you, y- you know, we go, we live our lives, we, we get to a certain age, and then all of a sudden it, it sort of hits you. It hits people at different stages, diff- but it does hit. You're like, "Oh, I'm old." [00:09:00] Right. Especially when you're with a group of younger people.

Right. You know, you realize, like you look around, you say, "I'm the oldest person in this room. I think I'm the oldest person in this room." And you know, it, it does give you pause, but it should not... What I say is you should celebrate that. Hey, I'm still here. I'm still vibrant. I'm still, you know, accepted.

What- whatever the terms may be, you are s- still living your life the way you want to live your life, and you're not gonna allow whatever chronological age you are to prevent you from doing that. And I, and I think that the entire concept of our podcast Is to stay engaged, stay active, stay relevant, and not let our society categorize us Right.

We are all individuals, and we, and we, you know, if they wanna lump us [00:10:00] into a group, I, I protest. I protest. Because look W- we know that there are some 30-year-olds who are old people. If, if you use, you know, some of the, the measures that are used to determine whether you're old or not, they have old think, they're not open to new ideas, they, they don't like interacting with people, um, they're grouchy.

You know, because, you know, you always talk about the crotchety old man or woman or whatever. Um, the, you know, this, this image of, you know, the old guy who doesn't want anybody on his lawn. They don't want the kids playing ball. They don't want the noise. They, you know, yes, that may be true for some people, but to stereotype a whole group of people that way is just wrong at- because most people are not like that.

And you know, there are older people in other countries. Yes. Uh, y- surprisingly, right? The old- Yeah. This is a [00:11:00] Western phenomenon. And older people in other countries aren't necessarily categor- categorized as negative as we are here. Very often older is synonymous with wisdom, with maturity, and it's, it's a goal, it's a milestone to reach a certain age, as opposed to a, a death sentence.

Uh, uh, that's just a figure of speech. I didn't mean literally. Yes. Well, I mean, nobody gets out alive. We know that. Um, but, but most of us want to live life to the fullest while we are still here. And as Harold was saying, other cultures approach aging and look at aging in a different way. Um, wisdom, emotional security.

Um, people look up to them for that wisdom. People go to them to get help in situations [00:12:00] because they know that these people have been through things that they haven't, and they understand that that wisdom might be helpful to them. So they look at them that way. That, that's even within our lifetime, we often had that auntie or grandma who you, first of all, you didn't think of them necessarily as old, but as the person who you could go to and would be able to tell the stories.

Yes. Yes. And, and I mean, unfortunately now I guess we have to put that person in a, one of these Gen X, Z, Y, old whatever box And, and also, um, I lost my train of thought just, just right then. See, does, is that a sign that I'm- Uh-oh. Uh-oh ... elderly? It, one of the other things, uh, I mean, we also recognize, let's be quite frank here, these categories w- aren't written in stone.

It's not like out in the, you know, l- [00:13:00] like physical. They are created. And who created them? People who wanna sell you stuff. Y- yes, marketeers. Yep. You know, and we're gonna be doing a future podcast on just how marketeers present us, um, in, on, in their marketing campaigns. But what I remembered what I was going to say, that in other cultures, chronological age isn't always the gauge of, you know, you growing older.

Um, we saw that in India An individual reaches a milestone not based on when they retire or even when they were born, but when their children marry or when they become grandparents, because then they're elevated to the head of the family. Maybe they're the, the oldest person in that family, and they're given the respect and dignity, um, you know, that people believe they deserve because that's where they are in their [00:14:00] lives.

Um, it, it, it's just very interesting that only, it seems, in Western culture, that we, we look at aging as something bad rather than something good. You know, everyone in, it seems, in our culture, um, wants to look younger, be younger. You know, age, you know, being older is not considered a positive thing. Um, you know, it's considered negative because, "Oh, oh God, do I look old?

Am I old?" Right. You know, that sort of. So I think that, what do you think? What d- what do you think? Does, do you think it matters? Does it matter what people call you? What do you feel like? And if you think it matters, can or should we do something about it, or, and what would we do about it? Uh, certainly, um, I said this to Harold when we were, uh, planning this episode.

If someone came up to me and referred to me as [00:15:00] elderly, I think I might take- No. I don't know. I know, I know what you would do. I, uh, "Who you calling elderly?" That's- "Who the hell you calling elderly?" Exactly. Um, but, but when I said that, Harold made a good point. We know a lot of people who are older than we are that we would never, ever say they were elderly because their spirit, their involvement in things, um, you know, just doesn't...

I, I mean, you could be elderly at 50 in, in my mind if, if you wanna, you know. I, I don't think it has a, a, an age associated with it. I, I think we've pretty much beat this horse to death. To use a bad metaphor. Maybe I should use a different one. Is it a old horse? Uh... No, it's- I'm sorry. I'm, I'm being very bad today

it, it's, it's a senior horse. But I just, I just, I just think that it's something to think about. How do you want to be [00:16:00] referred? Um, and, and if you do take exception to how people are talking about you, it, it does matter. It does matter in so many instances, not only regarding age, but in, in, uh, on, you know, on other levels as well.

We just saw, I think, was it 60 Minutes or, or- No, no, no. It's Sunday Morning ... Sunday Morning. Pickleball. When you hear the word pickleball, what do you think of? I know what you think of. Old people. Bunch of old people. Right. And this story was about an, a 19-year-old girl who's, like, a pickleball champ, and Harold's first reaction was, "Oh," like they're taking something away from old people.

No, no. You know what I thought it was. I said, "Yeah, sure she's a champion, 'cause she's playing against 80-year-olds." And I said, "You know, that's not fair." But no, it wasn't that. It, it wasn't that. But it's just interesting that certain things are associated with young people and certain things are associated with old people, and when the border's are crossed, [00:17:00] people sometimes ha- take issue with that.

R- right. Right. Some... I mean, we do. We, we do say, like, somebody is trying to act like a teenager when they're, you know, 80. Right. Well- You know, dressing like a teenager or, or, you know, using teenage lingo or whatever. So I guess we just have to all be careful about how we refer to ourselves and to other people So what do you think?

Send us a note at youstillhavetimepodcast@gmail.com. We'd like to hear what you thought, what you think. We'd like to hear what you think about this episode or anything else having to do with the topics that we've covered so far. I know, you know, we've... I don't know, this is our sec- our 11th or 10th episode this season.

Yes. And, um, we, we really relish your f- your feedback because we need you to give us ideas so that we can talk about them. I mean, I know we- Yeah, 'cause we are old and we can't think of new things. Oh, stop [00:18:00] it. Um, so we, we have, we'll leave some links in the show notes to some of the res- re- uh, research that we've seen.

I, I know you're not gonna read it, but we'll put it there anyway. Um, we also, you can leave us a message on SpeakPipe. You can text us a message. All this information will be left in the show notes. Wherever you listen to us, wherever you're listening to this podcast, you can, uh, follow us, uh, you can find us on YouTube and Spotify and- Right, and tell your friends about us too.

Right. Tell them, "Oh, yeah, you know, I listen to this great podcast. You should take a listen." And they don't have to be old folks. No, they don't, I, because I think a lot of younger people can, can gain some insight from listening to some of the things that we talk about, not only for themselves, but maybe for, you know, members of their family.

All right. So I guess we will wrap this episode up. Yeah. And- We thank you so much for listening, and we look forward to, [00:19:00] I guess, you joining us again. And you know how we always finish up our episode. Just remember, you still have time. Take care. B