An excerpt from I Can’t Believe I’m Old
by Janet Torge
This Phase of Life – Aging – Needs a New Label
I’m at a loss to find a word that describes this last stage of life. I assume most boomers feel the same way.
In fact, let’s start with “Boomers.”
In some way it’s a correct term. Our generation did come into the world in large, postwar it’s-time-to-make-a-family numbers. In the small town where I grew up, my first-grade class had to hire a second teacher for the increased number of kids who were turning 6 years old. And since families grew, and babies just kept on coming, the teaching staff increased every year for a while.
There have since been other baby booms, but their descriptives haven’t stuck like ours. Who even remembers the “Echo Boom” in the 80s and 90s? If they’d been called “Boom-Booms,” I bet the title would have stayed around for a while.
No, the Boomer label stuck on us, even though we did nothing but be born in large numbers. I say get rid of it. It doesn’t have the cachet or the accuracy it once had.
“Sixties Generation” hits the mark a little better. We did get all anxious and outraged when we hit our 20s. Our music took over the air waves and concert halls. We were on the front lines, yelling and screaming about everything from the War in Vietnam, women’s rights and legalizing abortion. But most of our yelling and screaming, the protests, the shedding of the bras actually happened in the 1970s (and if we’d take off our bras now our waists would expand). So, let’s put this one in the history books and move on.
Then we come to seniors, elders, and old people. My first inclination is to scream NO at each one. I’m well aware that every generation before us probably had the same reaction in their time.
These labels have no sense of real activity about them. They conjure up park-bench sitting, afternoons of canasta and sitting in the park feeding pigeons for hours on end.
Also, we take a strong stand against these words because we don’t feel like we’re a senior, elder, or old person… yet. OK, when pushed, we might admit that, maybe, sometime down the road, we could feel that way. But when the knife is lowered from our throat, we know we will never see ourselves as part of that crowd. (Right?)
“Senior” conjures up large, characterless buildings with bath rails, bingo, and eager young social workers leading us onto buses for field trips to a dairy farm or a museum.
“Elder” has some grace to it. I think of wisdom, calm, and even a slow, determined approach to life. I imagine people coming to elders for advice about a community issue or a family squabble where “experience” might be useful.
But the world has changed so much I’m not sure I could come up with a solution that could sit equally next to what A.I. might propose. And besides, “Elder” is definitely a label for my 90s—although, I am not sure I’ll ever achieve the wisdom or the calm parts.
“Old people” is just plain sad. The first ones gathered and sent out to pasture because they’re useless to the cause—whatever the cause. Or, in the Western world, poor souls forgotten by everyone, sitting in wheelchairs, alongside other old people, watching the days go by with dribble on their chins. If I ever get there, I won’t be a happy camper.
These terms should be stuffed into the dustbin of time along with nylon stockings, girdles, tight perms and trousers worn above the waist.
Then there’s the most recent nomenclature: “Zoomers.” This has a playful aspect that I like. The idea of zooming around sounds fun, although I’m not quite sure how to achieve it. My life feels more like a stress test right now, but maybe that will change. However, Zoomers seem to have more money than I do. Perhaps lots of cash is needed to zoom properly—in which case, I’m doomed not to zoom.
Also, the Zoomer group seems way too big to be a useful category. Evidently, it includes Wayne Gretsky, who was cutting the ice in a peewee league when I was going crazy with two small kids underfoot. Maybe when he and his gang are over 70 and I’m over 90 (God willing), we might have more in common. But now? They’re not wondering if they can afford a burial plot or how to feel when their kids make more money than they do.
I found one company on the Internet acknowledging that aging boomers hate the term seniors, so they build residences for—are you ready?—Active Adults. They don’t bother to explain just how active you have to be to qualify or what they do with you when a walker is needed.
With demographers predicting vast numbers of us living well past our 100th birthdays, I wondered if “New Middle Agers” might be more appropriate. But living to 120 is not my idea of a good time. (And besides, “middle” reminds me I don’t have a waist, and I miss it.)
Fresh out of the Lingo Fridge: “GrandPeople.” I like this idea, the turn of phrase, the sex inclusivity. It sounds dignified and majestic as if the older we become, the more we gain respect and might even be consulted on serious issues of the day.
However, this label will need a very persistent marketing plan because anyone of any age knows, this is not generally how older people are seen and treated these days. Apart from a few ancient newscasters and TV hosts, most of us are shown an exit from high profile jobs as soon as the white-hair-and-wrinkle combo can no longer be hidden from view.
And it has to be said: GrandPeople also conjures up visions of large ancient trees, stomping through the woods, scaring everything in their path.
Finally, my own humble suggestion is that we settle on something that promises some of our best years are yet to come, with new adventures, and success in redefining what it means to be old.
I christen us all “Late Bloomers.”
Excerpted from I Can’t Believe I’m Old by Janet Torge © 2026. Used with permission of Linda Leith Publishing.
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Janet Torge lives in Montreal and is always looking for new adventures. She’s been a television documentary producer, a prenatal teacher and Birth Doula, an overnight talk-show host at CFCF Radio, traffic reporter and Radio Noon host at CBC Montreal, a columnist at the Montreal Gazette, and co-founder of the first rape relief centre in Canada. She recently trained as a Death Doula and is also the author of Dear Sam, a book about the death of her son.
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