Forget 'Senior Citizen' — Aging Baby Boomers Search for Better Term

Older adults do not want to be called or perceived as old, and are looking for different labels that have less negative connotations, reports the Wall Street Journal . Stanford Center on Longevity Director Laura Carstensen prefers the term perennial, which she says implies reinvention without assigning positive or negative attributes. Bowling Green State University's Jeremy Wallach says baby boomers are particularly self-conscious. "They want to adopt a new generational identity for themselves in post-retiree years," he notes. Generational labels are especially inaccurate. There are both healthy and frail 80-year-olds, while the 60-plus population includes the so-called Greatest and Silent Generations, who think and feel quite different about age and propriety. Stanley Szott, 93, believes words such as "senior citizen" or "older adults" are redundant. "We don't need to be reminded that we are senior citizens," he says. Szott also contends such umbrella terms fail to identify a person as an individual. "You lose your identity. Everyone's the same," he says. RiverSpring Health CEO Daniel Reingold prefers "older adults," which he thinks is neutral and accurate. "The difference between a 90-year-old and a 40-year-old is that one adult is older," Reingold says.