What do we call “old people”?

What do we call “old people”?

Picture of Bernard A. Steinman

Bernard A. Steinman

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Why the Words We Use for Older Adults Matter

Each spring when I teach my class on aging, I ask young students–who are usually in their early 20s—what we should call people over the age of or around 65.

I hear pretty much the same list year after year: elderly, senior citizens, aged, elders, senile and geriatrics. In other words, they are terms that most 65-year-olds and many 80-year-olds would not relate to or apply to themselves.

The importance of choosing words carefully becomes more evident to my students when I ask them to think about the connotations that words carry. Consider this: Is there a difference between the words “elder” and the addition of two little letters… “elderly”?

This semester, I asked a student to come to the front of the room and act out what a person who is “elderly” looks like. Immediately, the 21-year-old woman hunched over to grab her make-believe cane then feebly and with uncertainty, shuffled across the room.

What difference does it make? Are the terms we commonly use and the perceptions we may hold about the average older person even accurate? And can our most common perceptions about what it means to be older be detrimental to ourselves and our society overall?

Are Common Stereotypes About Aging Even Accurate?

It is important to understand that older adults are very diverse and while there are ready examples of people who are “elderly” out there who match my student’s miming, it is certainly not the norm for older people on average. In fact, most older adults are doing just fine. Overall, the health, functioning, and finances of older people are better than they’ve historically ever been! Unfortunately, negative stereotypes about older people persist. We live in a society in which we are inundated with potentially damaging and outdated stereotypes about older people throughout our lifetimes, from when we’re younger to when we’re older.

How Media and Society Reinforce Ageist Stereotypes

Just turn on your television, scroll through your social media pages, or walk down the greeting card aisle in any department store. If you are over the age of, say, 40, be prepared to be informed about how you are “over the hill”—that you are cantankerous, hard of hearing, and tired, along with implicitly learning that you are somehow of less value as a human being due to your age.

Older adults seem to be the one type of person that is considered fair game by society to ridicule just about everywhere. Spend five minutes watching late-night comedy talk shows and you will soon see that older people are often mercilessly mocked simply for being older, regardless of how keen their physical or cognitive abilities may be. Try that with almost any other type of person, Stephen Colbert.

And even when people do have serious aging-related impairments such as dementia or mobility challenges, is that where we really want to go? To belittle people for things they cannot control? In most cases it doesn’t seem very productive to me given the costs it may charge and the harm it can do more broadly in the end.

This past week, I was discussing ageism in the media with a good friend of mine who happens to be a retired professor in his 70s. He observed that television shows created just 50 years ago seemed to hold older people in greater reverence than we do today. He mentioned the old show, titled The Waltons, about a multigenerational depression-era family living together in a rural Virginia household.

You may recall that two of the main characters in that show were grandparents who had roles as “wisdom sharers” in the family. Of course, compared to the early 1970s when The Waltons first aired, older people today make up a much larger percentage of the population. I wonder if their relative scarcity back then made them more valued as recognized contributors, and less likely to be targets for ridicule.

Nevertheless, modern media does its part to perpetuate images of older people as a burden or problem to be resolved rather than the resource they can potentially be.

But it doesn’t stop with the media. Even very good-hearted people operating within organizations that are charged with supporting or advancing the standing of older adults and their causes often employ approaches and describe their consumers in terms that are less than endearing.

As a gerontologist with 25 years in the field, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen old and worn-out tropes about aging used to promote participation in organizations where they probably shouldn’t have been. I’ve seen memes left out in open view, subtly mocking loss of memory, incompetence, and even incontinence.

To me, these types of things, which are often brushed off as “poking fun at ourselves” seem wildly misplaced in settings where older people come to enjoy and better themselves. After all, most of us don’t seek out events, activities, services, volunteer opportunities, or jobs based on where we’ll be diminished the most.

How We Talk to Older Adults Matters Too: Elderspeak

It’s not just what we say, but also how we say it. For instance, consider “Elderspeak” which is the sing-song intonation often used by people to communicate with relatively frail older adults. Though it is usually done with the best and kindest intentions, it can be equally harmful. We often speak to people like they’re not capable of doing things they’ve done their entire lives until that day, and it is operant conditioning at its finest. It impacts almost any being with a brain, from pigeons to people, …and is carried out in a kind sort of tone. Even my 15-year-old dog, Rascal, only required one incident of me kindly helping him up the stairs one day for him to learn that he could no longer walk up the stairs on his own …and to completely sweep him of his dignity.

How We Talk to Older Adults Matters Too: Elderspeak

This is certainly not to say that some people do not require assistance but that maybe we offer it too often when they don’t, based on how we think older people should perform. Seldom do we consider how that kind of kindness could be harmful to people we care about.

How Ageist Stereotypes Become Self-Fulfilling

Words, and the meanings we apply to them, matter and can impact how people behave. If we treat people like they are “out to pasture”, have nothing of value to contribute, or speak to older people like they are children, then guess what happens: It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that can lead to loss of confidence, depleted initiative, and in time, greater dependence. Perfectly capable older adults themselves also may harbor negative stereotypes about aging. After all, they’ve had decades longer than my 20-year-old students to internalize the ageist stereotypes that we’re all consistently bombarded by. How often do we jokingly talk about “senior moments” during times of normal forgetfulness? Or attribute aches and injuries while out climbing mountains or running 10-ks to “getting older”? When less favorable outcomes do occur, why do we not first consider the personal lifestyle choices we’ve all made along the way? Why not consider what we ate and drank or smoked, how much we exercised, or how much we did not exercise? We are humans after all, but these are often not age-related outcomes. Can we at least be honest with ourselves and more accurately place the blame where it is very often due? It’s not that time doesn’t take its toll and slow us down a bit—it does. But why do we always jump to that conclusion first? I’ll tell you why. It’s at least partly because of the greeting cards you’ve received and believed, and the television you’ve watched. That’s how powerful lifelong exposure to negative stereotypes is—it can cause us to distort our own realities about ourselves and our abilities, and the causes of our inabilities. Words also have the power to “other” entire types of people, separating them from humanity at large because they are not like “us”. In this case, we may be “othering” people based solely on their age. Why do we do this? Who knows? Maybe it is fear of the decline that eventually overcomes us all– if we’re lucky to live long enough.

There Is No "Other" Group — We Are All Aging

“Othering” older people provides us with a buffer from the terror that often accompanies growing older. Each year Americans spend millions of dollars on hair dye, wrinkle creams, and cosmetic surgery trying to separate ourselves from our own made-up perceptions of what it means to be older. Yet, the solution may be as simple as accepting the beauty that could be inherent in our growing older.

The truth is, there is no “other” group. Everyone is aging, beginning at conception and ending at death. We can’t avoid it, but we can reframe our perceptions of it.

Words can raise people up so that they meet their full potential, or they can subtly degrade people and lead them to believe things about themselves that are not true to fact. As a society, we should encourage careful and deliberate word choices that promote successful healthful aging and good policy or else we risk unintentionally turning people into the “tired, unattractive, dependent invalids” that many ageist stereotypes already presume older people to be.

So, What Should We Call Older Adults?

So, what is the answer? What do we call people who are older? At the individual level, I usually default to calling people what they prefer to be called because it doesn’t cost me anything to treat peoples’ personal choices with respect. I know plenty of people who are proud to be called “senior citizens” –more power to them.

What Does the Gerontological Society of America Recommend?

In the academic and professional circles that I sometimes hang out in, there has been a concerted effort to encourage language that promotes greater awareness of the power of words to help reach our shared professional and policy goals and visions. For example, the Gerontological Society of America, of which I am a card-carrying member, is leading efforts to reframe aging issues by providing guidance on language standards that can counter ageist perceptions. For what it’s worth, GSA recommends that we use relative terms such as “older adults,” “older persons,” or “older people” to describe humans who are relatively older, as opposed to terms such as “seniors,” “the elderly,” and “the aged,” as if they are aliens visiting the planet for the first time, and not our friends, family, colleagues, …even ourselves.

The Move Away From "Senior" in Community Spaces

At a societal level, I worry that poorly chosen words applied generally to older people needlessly lead us to jettison the contributions of an entire type of person based on outdated ageist stereotypes. (If you will indulge me, that is to say we’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater). Because–as subtle as the effects may be–negative words and actions have the potential to prevent people from contributing to their fullest extent to make our relationships in families, workplaces and communities stronger. This growing societal concern is reflected in recent discussions within some communities about removing the word “senior” from the names of senior centers. Instead, such places can be simply renamed after their valued benefactors or referred to in more productive terms such as centers for healthy aging. In fact, some centers around the country have made this switch. They recognize that many people who can potentially contribute and benefit from engaging simply do not relate with the words “senior center” because “those types of places are for old people” and we’ve collectively been conditioned to think that is a bad thing.

A Wyoming Example: The Hub on Smith

An excellent local example of this trend occurs at the center in Sheridan, Wyoming, which simply calls itself The Hub on Smith. Notably, the word “senior” was not used once in its December 2024 newsletter.

Why This Matters to Me

The words we use to describe older people are not simply a matter of political correctness. I’ve been told by some that I’m ridiculous to think so deeply into this—that I’m being overly sensitive and protective of the types of people I study, or even that I am “virtue signaling” (an accusation, which when you really think about it in the context of demographic realities, is secretly steeped with ageist stereotypes). My motivations for encouraging the use of more thoughtful, deliberate language individually and within organizations are more deeply rooted than just wanting to say what is socially considered correct. I strongly believe that the current demographic trends that suggest most older Americans are likely to live many years, even decades, beyond their 65th birthdays require it. Societally, I think we are in no position to discard individuals who could be positively engaged contributors, whether through working and volunteering or by simply continuing to do the things they enjoy and value independently. When I reflect on my own choices, I would prefer that others describe me accurately based on—at minimum–who I am and not on lazy reflections of outdated stereotypes. When the time comes, if I am wise, let them call me wise. If I am a cantankerous fool… well, let them call me that then! But “senior citizen” and “elderly” are not the words for me. This is an opinion piece. The thoughts and opinions shared are solely those held by the author, Bernard A. Steinman (bsteinm1@uwyo.edu), who is a gerontologist, and Associate Professor in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, at the University of Wyoming.

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