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My dad is confused about his age and when I ask him how old he is he answered 57 which I will turn in July. We were in the car and I flipped down the mirror and asked him again his age after he looked in mirror and had no answer.
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Love it, GA. Ahh what it is to be young and … callow.

Dang, I wish I could remember which two actresses it was, but anyway: one gives way to another at a doorway with a smile and the words "please… age before beauty!" The older one (it must have been Bette Davis, surely?) sweeps past and throws back the remark "thank you! … and pearls before swine."
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I suppose no one wants to face the grim reality that the end of their life is drawing near and that they may go through it with far less than ideal health.

I think also that there are so many pre-conceived notions about what elders are supposed to be like and do that it can create resentment from those who are pre-judging.

There's also the fear of how much decline will take place, how much mobility will be limited, life in a facility instead of home, not to mention the ego aspect of becoming less than you have been all your life.

I know it isn't something I want to think about! But I'm having to face it with my father who still insists on doing things that aren't safe. He feels he knows himself well enough to handle these tasks, and he may to a certain extent, but there are always frailties that don't pop up like a computer printout to warn him what to watch out for.

There's also some delusion involved, I think, as a way of rejecting the fact that one is becoming more limited and will need help.

Back in the early 2000s I had just started a new job at a law firm and was the oldest person there. One of the secretaries, a rather precocious and self-absorbed one, had the audacity to ask why I was even working in my 50's and why I wasn't ready to retire.

The question was so stupid that I didn't even bother to answer.
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Not only are they not old, they fail to see you as an adult. You are still wet behind the ears. A whipper-snapper. So if they are 90 something, you are merely a 60 something Twit and will always be a Twit. LOL.
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Same reason I can't accept I'm 55..Just doesn't feel like I aged that quickly..that life passed by in an instant..but I understand your concerns for your aged parents....you're just trying to do what is best for them, before something tragic happens. And feeling helpless to accomplish it because they won't cooperate.
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Why can't parents accept that they have become elderly… Hm. Ask me again in forty years!

I know what you mean though FF - my mother hates anyone drawing attention to her age. I find it a bit irritating: surely it's better to milk it for all you're worth? I wish everyone were like Mary Ann Sailors in 'Under Milk Wood' calling "I'm 85 years, 3 months and a day!" from her window to greet the morning. But then I also claim to be 39 cough cough cough splutter
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