As I approach it, the exact day I enter middle age has become more salient. Reanna routinely refers to people in their late 30s as “middle aged” and I feel taken aback. Since I’ve been thinking about such things, I’ve thought of the 30s, at least, as just plain old “adult.”
I am 39, a couple of months from my 40th birthday. When do I hit middle age?
- middle age – the time of life between youth and old age (e.g., between 40 and 60 years of age). – wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Ah, that’s what I thought. I turn middle-aged at the end of this September.
- middle-aged – being roughly between 45 and 65 years old – wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Funny, the same website gives five more years, just by adding a “d.”
- Middle age is the period of age beyond young adulthood but before the onset of old age. Various attempts have been made to define this age, which is around the third quarter of the average life span of human beings. – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_age
I first misread this one as “middle third,” somehow, which liked–very intuitive. For men in the US like myself, however, whose average lifespan is 75.6 years, it places middle age between 25 and 50 years old. That means I’ve been middle aged since 1996. And that Reanna, as a Canadian woman with an average lifespan of 82.9 years, has been middle-aged since six months after her 27th birthday.
As my friend Julian pointed out, though, it actually says the third quarter: For men in the US from about 37.8 until about 57.7. It’s less intuitive for me, but lines up better with what people seem to mean by middle age.
- middle-aged – ‘between youth and old age, variously reckoned to suit the reckoner’ – www.crossword.org.uk/chambers.htm
I like that one as well. It may be the most accurate. Or perhaps this one:
- middle age – (1) when every person you meet is only a composite of other people whom you have met. (2) a time when you’ll do anything to feel better, except give up what’s hurting you. (3) later than you think and sooner than you expect. (4) when a narrow waist and a broad mind begin to change places. – www.theabsolute.net/minefield/tmdict.html
Nathen's Miraculous Escape 
August 13, 2011 at 10:10 am
Hi Nathen, I think your math is wrong on the “3rd quarter of life” calculation. I believe for a US male with 75.6 lifespan, the 3rd quarter would be from about 37.8 until about 57.7.
September 6, 2011 at 11:15 pm
Thanks, Julian!
August 13, 2011 at 2:01 pm
My grandfather would say, “You’re not over the hill until you begin to gain speed.”
August 15, 2011 at 6:47 am
Hahahaha! Oh Nathan, I always think about it this way: It is impossible to know when exactly we have arrived at “middle age” because it can only truly be based on the total number of years we have ultimately lived. Since I don’t really know just how long I will be on this earth, I cannot then designate a specific decade of my life as middle age. If I only live five more years then my “middle age” years would have been 25-40-ish. So my plan is to figure it out after I have passed on. OR you can take Arnold Schwarzenneger’s perspective when he turned 50 (which I did this year). When he was asked how he felt about it he responded with, “I hope the second half of my life is as great as the first half has been.” Arnold plans on living to 100 and therefore HIS middle age would be 50-75-ish. Just say’in. ;)