{"id":1318465,"date":"2020-02-27T23:16:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T06:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/making-an-elderberry-whine\/"},"modified":"2020-02-27T23:16:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-28T06:16:00","slug":"making-an-elderberry-whine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/making-an-elderberry-whine\/","title":{"rendered":"Making an elderberry whine"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A month ago, I came home to find my buffed-up, cross-trained 40ish neighbor and his son shoveling a foot of snow off my double-wide glacier of a driveway. I whipped out my electric shovel, helped finish my driveway, then helped them clear their snowplow-buried sidewalks. Laughing, my neighbor commented, \u201cI thought I was helping my elderly neighbor, but here she is helping me!\u201d<\/p>\n

I adore my neighbor. I know he meant well. But that word \u2014 elderly \u2014 shocked me. A month later, I\u2019m still chewing on it.<\/p>\n

In my book, anyone who skis black diamond runs (as I do) is not elderly. But the medical definition is \u201canyone over 65.\u201d That would make it official\u2026<\/p>\n

Then again, I\u2019m cranky and iconoclastic. When Gen-Y professionals at an AARP conference upbraided me and two over-65 friends for \u201cageist language,\u201d I bridled, thinking, \u201cGrrr. I\u2019ll call myself anything I (bleep)-well want!\u201d<\/p>\n

AARP later sent us a pamphlet on \u201coffensive\u201d terms. \u201cElderly\u201d makes their list, along with \u201csenior.\u201d Amusingly enough, a debate about \u201celderly\u201d has been going on since roughly the time I was born. While researching, I found a 2013 NPR story about this \u201cage-old problem.\u201d It referenced a 1953 flap among editors at the Washington Post!<\/p>\n

Asking around online, I found the debate left younger friends scratching their heads. Lily Surls asked, \u201cWhy is the term \u2018elderly\u2019 upsetting? Some elderly people are very healthy and lead very active lives. I\u2019m just curious, because it seems a bit like someone saying \u2018you throw\/play\/fight like a girl\u2019. That would be upsetting to someone who thinks of girls as weak, but not to somebody that has a lot of strong girls come to mind. There are plenty of elderly folks who are strong, vigorous and sharp, so I\u2019m curious why you don\u2019t feel the term fits you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Trinity Stebleton, a young mom to a toddler, thinks it doesn\u2019t fit. \u201cUm\u2026 I definitely wouldn\u2019t connect that term with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another local mom and working realtor, Kim McKinley, said, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t use the term \u2018elderly\u2019 for anyone on Facebook \u2014 especially not you!\u201d<\/p>\n

Absurd,\u201d my cute, frisky, retired friend Diane Witt pronounced. \u201cYou are not elderly, whatever that\u2019s supposed to mean. That word should be banished in polite company.\u201d<\/p>\n

I have plenty of peers in my cranky-pants camp. Glenda Leatherman snorted, \u201cAge-ism, pure and simple.\u201d Susan Walls thinks both \u201celderly\u201d and \u201csenior\u201d are \u201cderogatory.\u201d Francey Liefert echoed my own views, saying that she\u2019s \u201cproud to be an elder\u201d because it \u201cconnotes wisdom and asks for respect\u201d while elderly \u201cconnotes frailty and incompetency in our culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mulling things over, I found that I consider my 89-year-old husband elderly, but exempt my 68-year-old self. Wondering if he\u2019d agree, I asked Mason, \u201cDo you consider yourself elderly?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I still have most of my marbles, but I\u2019m not running the 100-yard dash anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite medicine\u2019s 65-plus designation, I don\u2019t consider the term \u201celderly\u201d necessarily age-based. Mason has a mended spine, trouble walking and mild, short-term memory issues. He gives himself a pass congitively, but fails the physical. (In my book, if you\u2019re 45 and putting on your ski boots qualifies as aerobic exercise, you\u2019re elderly. But I wouldn\u2019t say so out loud.)<\/p>\n

My former minster, the Unitarian-Universalist Reverend Gretchen Haley, has a sage view of this debate: \u201cI guess it depends what you assume being an \u2018elder\u2019 means. We have (ageist) cultural assumptions about the later stage of life. I see how much variety there is in people\u2019s 70s, 80s, 90s.<\/p>\n

I just tend not to think of being older, elderly, senior\u2026 whatever the term \u2026 as meaning anything other than the last third of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gretchen\u2019s measured comments reminded me that Hinduism divides our lives into four stages: the student, the householder, the retired (vanaprastha) and the renunciate (sannyasa). My peers and I are vanaprastha: a stage characterized by the birth of grandchildren, gradually transitioning responsibilities to the next generation, and emphasis on community service and spiritual pursuits. Whether we\u2019re called seniors, sages, silver foxes, or golden oldies, I think we\u2019re all grateful to be given the opportunity to grow old. We\u2019ve known fellow travelers who were denied that privilege.<\/p>\n

But like most of my boomer friends, I\u2019m nowhere near sannyasa, the Hindu stage of complete worldly renunciation. So what to call us? We\u2019re divided on \u201csenior\u201d and most dislike \u201celder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of us are okay with \u201cboomer\u201d (although it\u2019s sometimes a putdown) and pretty much everyone likes the term \u201celder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Personally, I\u2019m opting for what my peer Diane Witt wittily suggested: \u201cI want to be an elderberry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s an elder who\u2019s still juicy, right?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cJuicy and extremely nutritious,\u201d she replied.<\/p>\n

Alrighty, then! Just consider this column my elderberry whine.<\/p>\n

Nicolette Toussaint lives in Carbondale. Her column appears monthly in the Post Independent and at postindependent.com.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A month ago, I came home to find my buffed-up, cross-trained 40ish neighbor and his son shoveling a foot of snow off my double-wide glacier of a driveway. I whipped out my electric shovel, helped finish my driveway, then helped them clear their snowplow-buried sidewalks. Laughing, my neighbor commented, \u201cI thought I was helping my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1318465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-11 07:26:24","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1318465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1318465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1318465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1318465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1318465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1318465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}