The boomers refuse to be “elderly”

The boomers? They sound like the Clangers or some other characters from a kids TV show. Far from it. They are the baby boomers, those born during the Post WW2 baby boom between and 1946 and 1964.

That demographic group, after a life with considerable consumer power and influence in society, are now reaching retirement age. And they do not want to be referred to as “the elderly.”

Researchers at the Karolinska Institute who writing about ageing, whose papers we often proofread, are in agreement. The rather pejorative word “elderly” with its undertones of impoverishment and neediness is on the way out.

Boomers incidentally is also the name of a recent BBC comedy series. The working title was Grey Males! That sounds really exciting.

The ever-readable Bill Bryson’s memoir of his childhood in Des Moines, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, is a wonderful, very amusing account of a boomer childhood in the Mid-West.

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