I used to think that age equated to percentage of life lived, thus I thought that most people live to close around 100.
But it also made me think that people only get old when they’re like 80.
I mean like actually “old”. The “old” adults were referring to. At that age I considered those 14/15 year old 9th graders old, just a bit different “old”.
It’s well known in my house that “old” means “4 or more years older than my mum”. Whenever my mum gets a year older, the definition of “old” moves one year up.
Also, my dad is 5 years older than her.
I thought my grandparents were old, but old has legitimately changed a lot. In the 80s my maternal grandparents (then in their late 40s or early 50s - about the age I am now) looked like today’s late 60-somethings. Neither had any of their own teeth as it was somewhat common for dentists to recommend full replacement at the first signs of trouble for their generation. I don’t think either had ever worn sunscreen before I was a kid. My grandfather’s appearance was affected by diseases I never had to deal with like Scarlett and Rheumatic fevers. My grandmother got her hair set with nasty chemicals on a weekly for 30 years (I don’t know how it wasn’t so damaged it disintegrated).
My grandfather became the breadwinner for his siblings at 13 too, that’s gotta age a person. FYI: In those days you just had to mail in a form to get your Illinois driver’s license and the state never checked the details.
As a really young kid I thought everyone was born their age. I was not a smart kid.
I had a pakt with a friend in high-school, that we are going to jump out of a plane without a parachute when we turn 35. We couldn’t imagine wanting to live being that old. I’m kinda glad we lost touch, although it might be that she didn’t make it till 35.
She turned 35 and jumped out of a plane with tears in her eyes because you weren’t with her.
When I was in grade school in the 60s, we had a math problem… “how old will you be in the year 2000?” I calculated 42 and thought “OMG, I’ll be nearly dead by then”…
That definitely makes you one of the older Lemmy users. How was life in the 60’s? Was it as fun as it seems looking back?
I was pretty young in the 60’s but I always think that I’d going back to that time. Even if I could bring a laptop with me, I could use it to compile local applications but can’t use it for any communications.
When I was 5, I thought the teenagers bagging groceries were old. But old is always grandma’s age (while you have a grandma)
I remember as a child having more than one family member who were in their 90s. So old to me was 70s+
