Elders vs. Seniors

The term “seniorâ€Â? is generally preferred by those who are comfortable with their age. My friend’s parents are an example of this, both WW2 generation. However in some cases you will run into those who feel that Elder is better.

My friend’s mom responds: They’re seniors in denial. She said the term Elder is dated and only serves to emphasize just how old they really are. While not being in my later years myself, I am inclined to agree.

I respectfully and strongly disagree with Mr. Hartley and wonder how he knows that senior is generally preferred by those who are comfortable with their age, particularly since he admits he is not an elder. Senior and senior citizen are time-worn, shop-worn, institutional phrases that have become pejorative with overuse. Who doesn’t yawn when they see such a headline and those who “prefer senior” haven’t been offered a choice.

Elder is a lovely, old-fashioned word in need of resurrection, perfect for an era in which we live, on average 20 to 30 years longer than our grandeparents and in better health than they. My session, when I spoke at the SXSW conference in February was titled “Respect Your Elderbloggers” and The New York Times in April, at my instigation, headlined a story, “Connected: Elderbloggers Stake Their Claim.”

The use of elder and elderblogger was initiated by Blogher co-founder, Elisa Camahort when she referenced me on her health blog as “premier elderblogger.” I had avoided using senior and senior citizen from the day one on my blog for the reasons stated above, but had been searching for something less clunky than old person or older person without success until Elisa’s resolved the issue for me.

I’m having trouble parsing Mr. Harley’s friend’s mother’s comment. On one hand she says “elder” only serves to emphasize how old we are, (yes, ma’am, and hurray for that) but on the other hand says we are in denial if we don’t use the phrase, senior.

Far from the latter, the large community surrounding Time Goes By does celebrate our age - individually and collectively - and seeks to correct pull back the veil on what aging is really like and to thwart the efforts of a youth-obsessed culture to force us to pretend to be younger either through surgery or poisonous toxins, or be shoved out of the mainstream of life.

Ageism is as demeaning and insidious as racism and sexism are, but is tolerated even - as in age discrimination in the workplace - when it is illegal. Part of changing that is changing language. Language matters because when used to stereotype people, it sets negative perceptions.

And if you don’t believe that’s true, just take a look up there at the Google ads: “home health care,” “elder care,” “mental health.” Do you think Google would place an ad for mental health if the word they were matching was youth?

I prefer “elder,” however, the term “senior” doesn’t bother me. Associations are different for each individual, but for me “elder” conveys wisdom and dignity, while “senior” evokes osteoporosis. That is a purely personal image.

I do find a bit of contradiction in the statement above — how can elders be in denial if the term emphasizes how old they really are?

I’m a junior elder at 57, my father is a senior elder at 82. Tone of voice and respectful behavior are much more important than semantics and apply to any age.

I expect you’re about to get an earful from Ronni Bennett’s readers so let me put in a vote for the other side. I think her “elder” terminology is silly. It works in some cases, for example, the elder generation (which makes more sense than saying the senior generation). But it doesn’t have a good contrastive: older is the opposite of younger; senior is the opposite of junior. Elder by itself implies some comparison. If you are 60 and your parents are 80 then you can’t be the elder.

Perhaps I don’t understand the issue given that I’m a mere middler.

“Seniors” in denial? Pffftt.

Denial of what, exactly?

Question: Why should an elder person be in denial?

Answer: Because society expects you to apologize for getting old.

Onward, with no apologies1

Do you want to know how many senior/elder bloggers there are? Go to
http://coolstop.com/ageless/supporters/ and check us out. Some of us prefer senior and some, like Ronni, prefer elder. I don’t care what you call me; I just want attention and respect!

I will be 70 in October. I consider myself to be a “senior” but not elderly. Elderly in my mind implies that you are impaired by your age. Senior to me, means I have attained an age to be proud of. Please, please people don’t call me elderly until I start shuffling, shaking and telling stories multiple times to the same person.

I don’t mind the word senior either. You could be 20 and I could be 25 and I’d be senior. Elder feels very weighty and ponderous to me. It implies wisdom which, unhappily, does not always accompany age. I think a person should use whichever term feels more comfortable and nobody should judge or take one or the other as a pejorative.

cartoon, asks about the difference between elder and senior on his blog today. The first comment this morning left me more than a little piqued, so I wrote a fairly restrained (for me, anyway) response rant. Perhaps you could stop by Chris’s blog and join the fray.

between elder and senior on his blog a couple of days ago. The first comment left me more than a little piqued, so I wrote a fairly restrained (for me, anyway) response rant which turned into a TGB manifesto of sorts. Perhaps you could stop by Chris’s blog and join the fray.

I’m old enough to be officially a senior (65) but I look & feel younger. I hope never to be elderly, no matter how long I actually live. I’ve always thought that senior citizen was a euphenism for “elderly” or “old” person. Wisdom does not always come with age, and respect can be earned by anyone at any age. I feel that being referred to as either senior or elderly segregates me from those younger than myself, but that’s just my opinion. You know the old joke; call me anything but don’t call me late for dinner.

I equate “senior” as a nice term for high school and college, but let’s leave it in academia where it belongs. “Senior” is definitely very institutional sounding, outdated. I dislike the stereotypes associated with the word “senior” which have accrued over the years and are rampant in all levels of our culture.

Use of the term elder can imply wisdom, but does not mean simply because someone is older they have wisdom. The term can be appropriate for those in a wide age range.

I’ve never been in denial of my age, nor am I now at age 70 yrs. I have generally just referred to myself as “older,” only because I do not like labels at any age, since so often labels are associated by too many people with inaccurate stereotypes. We’re long past due to jettison the stereotypical image and the label “senior” that goes with it.

My dislike for “Senior” started with the term “Senior Citizen.” As Ronni said that term is overused and hackneyed. I will be 77 in December, and I much prefer the term “elder” rather than than “senior.” This is in no way a denial of my age but more a statement of living to the point in life where I have acquired wisdom and deserve the respect that goes along with age.

We “Elder Bloggers” are a large, diverse group with many interests and varied talents. Many of us got acquainted by visiting Ronni Bennett’s blog and following her links. Here’s to all the “Elder Bloggers” who wear their age proudly and refuse to “go gentle into that good night” as Dylan Thomas wrote

“Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

In my community — black American — elders is the term used, and it connotes respect.

I remember reading an interview with a woman in her 70s — I can’t remember her name, I read it so long ago. Anyhow she said how funny it was that people referred to her as “African-American” and “senior citizen,” saying “Aw, heck — I’m an old black woman!”

Elder, senior, I do not really care which term one uses. What is important is that younger people recognize the contributions we still make to society and pay more respect. I never thought of my mom as impaired by her age until recently when she became “elderly” and bedridden, but she did read/discuss the New York Times every day well into her nineties.

In Judism and Christianity and in most other “tribal” cultures there are elders, which are the community VIP’s, so to speak. In all ancient civilizations, the elders or older ones were natural - not elected officiers.

Age was something one was proud of in those days. When the the leader of Egypt met the Father of Joseph, the first thing he asked about was his age. This account is in Genesis.

“Older people” seems to be the international English usage. In some communities where being an elder is an earned title, not simply because one has lived longer, then a compromise of “the elderlies” is used.

“Older people” seems to sidestep the issue of grandparents at 40 years (a 42 year old elder? a 65-year old elder? is 70 the new “golden ager”? Fortunately, the “golden age” dropped nearly as fast as the advertisers created it.).

Elderblogger is good; an older person who writes about issues of concern to the elderlies.

Seriously, though, discrimination against and sterotyping of the aged or older people is serious, whether done by older or younger people, or by those in between.

As for Google — like any computer generated activity — is stupid, GIGO; which never stopped anyone from making money off of someone. Chris and other googleadders can specify which ads to accept, or not. Everyone else can complain to those running the show over at G-land.

Call me senior; call me elder (which I prefer & yes, I am an Elderblogger & incredibly proud of it — long may we rave!!!!); call me crazy. I really don’t care as long as I get my propers when it comes to respect & rights in our society. As to denial. I cannot be in denial — my mirror, my body and the world remind me constantly that I’m not the girl I once was.

The word “elder” has connotations that are more appropriate for today’s elders than the connotations for “senior” or “senior citizen.” One of the dictionary defintions is “An older, influential member of a family, tribe, or community.”

Some of the commenters here acknowledge the respect implicit in the world elder; others miss it entirely by
1) focusing on the adjective, as in elder sibling
2) speaking as if words don’t matter

Words DO matter; names matter; connotation matters. We’re talking about blogging where words are the coin of the realm; what else is there? OK, some people use photos or illustrations, but come on! Think about it. We’ve come a long way from the days when all women, regardless of age, were called “girls,” but I still have relatives who call us “girls” and then apologize for not being “PC.” Our language is not about being politically correct; the way we use language equates to how we view the world and how we communicate that vision of the world, and in no way can we stick with denotation only: connotation defines who we are.

Ronni has pegged the crux of the word problem, and that is “ageism.” The younger you are, the less likely you are to recognize ageism, so I ask you younger folks to take our word for it. Ageism exists and it doesn’t serve anyone well, not the elders and not the–hey, shall we call you other folks “kids” since words don’t seem to matter?

I respect the fact that some people don’t care whether they’re called “senior” or “elder.” But the issue is bigger than personal preference.

I suggest “wiser”. It’s a term that applies to all tribes on the globe. Elders might remind the infamous “elders of zion”. Seniors might remind school or college, or it sounds like the PM of Lebanon, or the spanish for sir and lord. BTW, the hispanic tribes use a term close to “ancient”, and the francophone tribes would not mention anything close to “old”, but would say “of a certain age”. Since all tribes agree that we become wiser, I suggest the global term “the wiser” for us (OOPS, I just told you I’m ancient.

The Elderbloggers strike again! Chris Pirillo (chris.pirillo.com/2006/08/08/elders-vs-seniors/) has taken on our fearless leader, Ronni Bennett who raised a call to arms at Time Goes By re: elder vs. senior to describe those of us of a certain age. The response was great & I must say we Elderbloggers have held our own. I was nice seeing us

Ronni writes:
“and wonder how he knows that senior is generally preferred by those who are comfortable with their age, particularly since he admits he is not an elder.”

Let me explain again as I stated very clearly on the first place - “My friend’s mom responds: They’re seniors in denial. She said the term Elder is dated and only serves to emphasize just how old they really are. While not being in my later years myself, I am inclined to agree.”

Typo, must be my ‘youth’ coming to back to haunt me- meant to say “clearly in the first place”. ;o)

the ageless project: Place to start when looking for elder bloggers. (via)

Description: Connecticut Retirement Communities is the perfect site for active adults considering relocation to Connecticut. Connecticut Retirement Communities includes web sites of active adult and senior - Elders vs. Seniors ~ Chris Pirillo Admittedly, we were hoping to catch the attention of the senior elder blogging community with yesterday s comic AoA Homepage > Elders & Families The US Administration on Aging is an agency in the US Department of Health and Human Services,

you are really CRAZY :)

I don’t like elder… it’s one step from elderly. Ronni and I disagree. She uses it in the sense of elder-statesman. One who by their years and experience deserve respect.
I think Ronni sees ageism around every corner, so she is militant about it.
When somebody under 40 says “older” I always ask, you mean like about sixty? They quickly say yeah, then realize that I’m sixty and we have a good laugh.
I like the nice broad term boomer. The older I get, the less I like senior and will never like elder.