Wow, time flies. Nearly 20 years ago, soon after my 50th birthday, I started making a list of what I considered mistakes my parents (and many of their generation) had made as they aged — and that I swore I would not repeat. Some of the items were silly (“I won’t color my hair anymore”), but most of them had substance (“I won’t limit myself to friends my own age” and “I won’t worry about what I can’t control”), and a few took the needs of family into account (“I won’t keep driving when I become a threat to others” and “I won’t deny the fact that I need hearing aids”).
Now, in the penumbra preceding 70, I’m seeing my life – and my list – in a new light.
I wrote about the list for the first time in 2017, after my parents had died. Born of the frustration I felt witnessing the price Mom and Dad paid for their stubbornness, my tally had reached more than 100 items, and I hoped to hold myself accountable by going public with my promises.
That essay became a book, “Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Old,” which drew a wide swath of readers of my parents’ generation as well as my own. I took pleasure in fostering intergenerational conversations about living independently, not going quietly into that good night and finding purpose once our hair had begun to gray or fall out. The book was published a month before I turned 64, and I did a lot of publicity for it; one of my go-to sound bites included the aphorism “Age is but a number.”
But not all numbers are equal, I discovered a year later. The week I turned 65 (still on book tour), an interviewer asked about one of my pledges: my commitment to stop lying about my age. I answered as I had many times before, sounding more like an academic than a real person: “When we feel the need to scrape off a couple of years, there’s a cost to our well-being. It signals we’ve internalized the ageism that surrounds us, and lives within us.”
But then the interviewer asked me my age. I balked. I did not want to publicly acknowledge my “Medicare birthday.”
I also didn’t disclose that I’d been changing my birth year on dating apps as I approached 65. On Tinder I’d become 61 years old; on Match, 63. (Note: If you’re going to lie, be consistent.) When a potential date asked my age, I rushed to check the app before answering. What happened to “Age is but a number”?
Shortly after that, the interviewer continued: “Have you started taking your own advice yet?”
Yikes. It hadn’t crossed my mind that I needed to already. I replied truthfully, “I’m still working on building my list, not implementing it.”
That prompted an unexpected but reasonable follow-up: “Why do you think that is?”
I had the startling realization that I was approaching the age my parents had been when I first began keeping my “stupid things” list. Yes, I’d done a handful of the wise (but dreaded) tasks: I’d reserved a spot on the waiting list of a continuing care community. I’d had my hearing tested, and I made sure to pee before takeoff and wheels down.
In the book I’d made a big deal about not joining the “organ recital,” which starts out innocently enough – sympathizing with a friend who’s had minor surgery or mentioning your own high blood pressure. Before you know it, every conversation becomes a litany of sticky joints, cataracts or much worse. Boomers, like me, can’t stop talking about ourselves — even as we’re falling apart.
This item really struck a chord with friends, who would begin to sing a chorus of sciatica, angina, even a new hip or knee, and then cut themselves short. “Oh no, I’m joining Steven’s organ recital.” To be honest, I wasn’t trying to stifle all discussions of personal health, but to make it evident that the more we obsess over our frailties and illnesses, the more we allow them to define us. Thank you, again, Mom and Dad, for that insight.
Life doesn’t always follow a playbook, and I struggle with that, too. I’d written, “I may have cardiovascular disease, but I am not my cardiovascular disease.” Since then my heart health has worsened, requiring more doctor visits and tests. My condition even has a fancy name, “cardiotoxicity.” Of course I talk about it, because I get worried and feel the need to share. Every once in a while, I’ll listen to myself and think, “I am becoming my father.”
This is not the only way. Shortly after my 65th birthday, I needed a book from the top shelf in my office, and I did what I’d always done. In my stocking feet, I got up on my desk, positioning one shoeless foot on it while carefully balancing the other on the arm of a nearby chair. Then I did the unthinkable, which I hate to admit I didn’t even think about. I started to hop — just a little, of course — to get that extra height I needed to reach the book. That’s when I realized how much like my father (and grandfather) I’d become. (Both died from falls.)
I also remembered what a friend had told me years before. “The important thing is to remember no matter how much we tell ourselves we won’t become like our parents, we become them.”
I thought more about the divide between what I knew to be true (“falls are dangerous as we get older; falls can kill”) and my actions (“I’m exempt from the laws of nature, and I’m not that old”). Were this the only example of my doing something “stupid,” I’d say “mission accomplished.” But it wasn’t.
When my mom turned 80, I remembered teasing her for asking for a Kindle as a gift when she could barely use her phone. That doesn’t seem so funny anymore. Thanks to too many remotes with too many buttons, I have stopped using the two TVs in my house. I had warned Mom about being left behind; now I was the one gasping in someone’s dust.
These days I look more kindly on the decisions my parents made. I’d wanted more for them — more time to travel, more inclusion in our family’s life, more autonomy and more happiness — and I hoped they could have that by aging smarter. Now, it’s my — our — turn. My mindfulness should help, but it may not defeat my own, apparently genetic stubbornness. Here’s what else I’ve learned:
1. Hold yourself accountable: Find an “accountability partner,” suggests Chip Conley, author of “Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better With Age,” or make public certain promises to yourself. An accountability partner is someone in your life who can help you stick with your plan, and hopefully help get you back on track (in a non-judgmental way) if they catch you lying about your age, for example.
2. Don’t become hostage to denial: My next-door neighbor, 85, still cleans his gutters by getting up on his roof, despite his sister and me haranguing him – and this is after he was felled by a tree he tried to cut down by himself. It’s true that stubborn denial of aging can be helpful sometimes, so that we don’t give up too soon and begin to narrow our world. But we also need to be realistic about how things are changing. Unless you’re really unlucky (by dying young), no one escapes aging. Period. I think if my friends tell me I need to listen to them (so to speak) and get a hearing aid, I won’t push back or deny it’s an issue. About half of adults 60 or older have hearing loss and nearly all people 90 or older do, but only 15 to 30 percent of people who need hearing aids get them. Just as standing on your roof probably isn’t a great idea as you get older, pretending that your hearing is fine can have real-world impact. Untreated hearing loss can interfere with your ability to socialize and increase the risk of dementia. (Hearing aids can cut your risk of cognitive decline nearly in half.)
3. Think about how you want to do things differently as you age: My friend, fitness expert Denise Austin, 69, insists that we keep moving, rather than become sedentary. It’s not always easy to stay mobile as you age, but you can try walking and stretching for starters. Austin also reminds people of the importance of keeping a positive attitude as we age, which many studies also support.
4. Keep current with new technologies: From hearing devices to new communication methods, staying up to date can not only help you keep in touch with people, but it could benefit your brain health. A 2025 meta analysis published in Nature reported that the greater use of everyday technologies, like smartphones and laptops, was associated with reduced odds of cognitive decline among those over 50, including mild cognitive decline and dementia diagnoses. So figure out how those buttons work on the remote and don’t be embarrassed to ask for help sorting out the new features on your iPhone. Yes, it takes effort; yes, it’s worth it.
5. Be grateful, avoid hubris and keep a sense of humor (especially about yourself). If I were to rewrite my book on aging, I’d have included this advice front and center. I’d also be less harsh in my judgments of my parents. I’ve learned that walking in their shoes changes how I see this chapter of our lives.
Steven Petrow is a longtime contributor to The Post and author, most recently of “The Joy You Make” and “Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Old.”
The post I want to avoid the ‘aging mistakes’ my parents made. I’ve got work to do. appeared first on Washington Post.
