In the past, when people lied about their age, it was often to portray themselves as older than they were. Being an elder gave you clout, gravitas, power. Today, people lie in the opposite direction for fear of ageism. Part of the reason people struggle with the word “elder” is it sounds too much like “elderly.” And, it feels like the doormat to death.
It’s time to liberate the word “elder” from the word “elder-ly.” “Elderly” refers solely to years lived on the planet. “Elder” refers to what one has done with those years and speaks to the idea that you’re older than the people around you such as Tom Brady who was an NFL elder when he retired as a quarterback at 45. Elder is a relative term and Tom Brady was a modern elder.
Many elderly age without synthesizing wisdom from their experience. Elders reflect on what they’ve learned and incorporate it into the legacy they offer younger generations. The elderly are older and often dependent upon society and, yet, separated from the young. On the other hand, society has historically been dependent upon our elders, who have been of service to the young.
So how do we take back the term elder, create a modern definition as someone who has great wisdom to offer, especially during a time when wisdom is ever more valuable? As the gerontologist author Dr. Bill Thomas said to me, “When you were a child, people called this period of your life childhood. When you are an adult, we call this adulthood. When you’re an elder, we should call this elderhood as opposed to elderly.” Let’s make it a ‘hood that’s not scary. Just as a child peers into adulthood with intrigue, wouldn’t it be miraculous if an adult peered into elderhood with excitement?
The term “emerging adulthood” was introduced to the world by psychologist Jeffrey Jensen Arnett in a seminal article in 2000 and it caught on amongst academics and the general public. He initially thought it spanned from 18-25, but later ran it to age 30 and some psychologists have even suggested that emerging adulthood now lasts till 35 (yes, your 33-year-old son living in the basement is an “emerging adult”). Partly because “elderhood” isn’t a word we use all that much and getting older has been seen as an affliction, the term “emerging elderhood” has rarely been uttered from anyone’s lips. And, yet, it’s the transitional adult corollary to moving from being a child to being an embodied adult. In this case, it means moving from an adult to an embodied elder, emphasizing reinvention, wisdom, and legacy.
In this analysis of words and phrases in Google Books, you can see how “Emerging Adulthood” has caught on in the popular lexicon. This Ngram search found no usage of the term “Emerging Elderhood.”
So, you can imagine my delight the day after Christmas when I stumbled upon a 2021 white paper entitled “Emerging Elderhood: Transitions from Midlife” written by three academics, Karen Skerrett, Marcia Spira, and Jasmine Chandy which I lovingly devoured. I will dedicate this week’s daily blog posts to the premise that “emerging elderhood,” often 55-75 years old, is an important new life stage that deserves more attention. I’m an “emerging elder.” Are you an elder-in-training, too?
-Chip