But I’m not old

I was recently conducting research to inform my anti-ageism advocacy and was struck by the mixed feelings I was having. On the one hand, I was committed to the idea that ageist attitudes and age discrimination need to be challenged. On the other hand, I kept thinking – but I’m not old. Turns out 57, according to some definitions, is old.

While there is no consensus about how old age is defined in terms of years lived, the Australian Council on the Ageing defines anyone over the age of 50 as an ‘older adult’, and in Australia that refers to about 30% of the population. The United Nations defines older people as 60 and over, and the ABS generally classifies people over 65 as ‘older’.

I was hugely challenged by the idea of being an older person, and it took me a while to figure it out: I was experiencing internalised ageism.  

What is internalised ageism?

Internalised ageism occurs when a person takes on ageist community attitudes and then holds these beliefs to be true. The reason I resisted seeing myself as older, is because I didn’t see myself as less capable – which, I’m ashamed to say, I must have associated with being older. The problem with internalised ageism is that we run the risk of letting it limit our choices, and therefore, our potential. The second problem is that we may also try, as I had, to distance ourselves from our age and what it means.

What does it mean to be 50, 60 or 70?

One reason ageism exists is because societal ideas about what it means to be 50, 60 or 70 in 2022, are wildly out of touch with lived experience.

As a society we still think in terms of life stages that look like this: you go to school, go to work, find a job, get married, have children, work, retire and then age out/die. This was how my parents thought about their lives, in fact, I remember my father telling me that most of his friends had died within two years of retiring. This wasn’t quite true then, and the reality was that his own mother lived to 97. It’s still not true in Australia with few people following this exact trajectory. A life stage approach to thinking about ageing has been both normative and gendered. As a result, women have had little guidance for life at 50, 60 or 70. 

The reality is that the increasing life expectancy over the last 100 years, has seen us add an average of 30 more years to our lives.  The question is, what do we do with these 30 extra years?

We don’t yet have well developed or accepted conceptualisations for our longer lives.

An alternative

One response has been to redefine older age by ‘stretching’ the middle age. The Modern Elder Academy suggest that if we count adulthood from the age of 18 to 85 then we experience ‘midlife’ in our 40s, 50s and 60s. Barbara Waxman agrees and suggests that we experience a series of distinct changes during this period – akin to adolescence. She calls it middlescence and describes it this way:

A transitional period, between the ages of about 45 and 65, marked by an increased desire to find or create greater meaning in one’s life. Often accompanied by physical, social, and economic changes, it is a turning point from which adults continue to develop and grow.

While I am not a fan of the term middlescence, I do like the concepts that sit behind it. It acknowledges the range of changes one might experience in this period of life, and it acknowledges it as a time for positive realignment and growth. What I would add is that the experience of ageing and the challenges and opportunities of midlife and north midlife are different for women, culturally and developmentally.     

Where I have landed

Where I have landed in my journey, is that I am embracing my age of ‘middlescence’ and I am supporting women to help them embrace theirs. I have also become an advocate for anti-ageism by helping change the way we think about ageing for women. My not-so-secret plan is to age disgracefully.   

Note: The infographic was taken from Barbara Waxman’s Middlescence Manifesto found here.