We Are Older Than You. That’s No Reason To Call Us Ugly Names.

By Erica and Karen

When we were younger professionals, people called us girls. What they meant was, we were cute and spunky. Fun to be around. We did good work. But—we would soon find husbands, and our careers would be over after the first baby.

We stuck around, and people eventually understood we wanted to be called women. Some people understood why, some not, but most people realized they had better just do it.

And of course at the same time evolving diversity in our profession required that language also evolve, on many fronts. The import and power of names was ever more clear.

Now that we are older, we are confronting newly annoying words—sometimes in unexpected places, like eminent publications where one would not expect neanderthal thinking. Granny—to describe unsightly clothing. Senior. Senior citizen. Crone. Oldie. Wrinkly. Old bag. Old hag. The elderly.

What is with these ugly words and phrases?

We suspect the words are motivated by fear and ignorance. The media has painted such an unfortunate overall picture of older people as needy and greedy, frail and vapid, that no-one wants to see them, much less to be them. Better that older people be ostracized and put out to pasture, somewhere far away from everyone else. Using unpleasant words that denigrate older people immediately begins to separate us from the rest of humanity.

As of now, about 54 million people in the U.S., or sixteen per cent of the population, are over 65—which is apparently the dividing line between being a regular human and being old. (One of our readers alerted us to the fact that the WHO has redefined its age categories, so now 66-79 is middle-aged. We can’t find that on the WHO website but we think it makes total sense!) That’s a lot of people to sideline for no good reason. And sidelining them will be very expensive, along with being wasteful.

Happily, we think society may be catching on to the values of multigenerational living—and the benefits of continued interaction with people over 65. Language needs to catch up. Pejorative, isolating language should be abandoned, for sure. Even better would be new words reflecting the value of our continued participation in the world. Maybe something along the lines of “O Fabulous One.”

For now, we suspect older is the best we can do. A bit ambiguous, but not downright hostile. We were interested to read an article in The Atlantic that seems to confirm older is the least disliked term among those of us who are in the relevant category. (We rather like grownups too.) The article makes the further excellent point that if a group does not like or use a term associated with it, the term probably should not be employed by others for the people in the group.

If we are seen as having value, we will not be called nasty names. That time is coming. Let’s find some excellent names, and let’s celebrate a new, intergenerational world.