Friday, August 31, 2007

:: Wikipedia Doesn't Even Know My Husband Exists ::

Brian: I’m middle aged.

Me: No you’re not.

Brian: Yup. I’m middle aged.

Me: No. If you’re middle aged then that means you’re going to die at sixty.

Brian: Middle aged doesn’t mean halfway until you die. It means those years that surround the halfway point.

Me: Yeah. That’s your forties and fifties. That is middle aged. Your thirties is just your thirties. I mean, think of that show, Thirtysomething.

Brian: Yeah. Those guys were middle aged.

Me: No they were not. They were thirtysomething. Otherwise the show would have been called Middle Aged. Which it wasn’t.

Brian: Okay. It’s not like we’ll ever know the answer anyway.

Me: Sure. We can look it up on Wikipedia. I bet Wikipedia knows.

Brian: Smiling. Wikipedia knows when I’m going to die?

Me: Well. Yeah, probably. Wikipedia’s smart.

Surprisingly, Wikipedia doesn’t know when my husband is going to die. It doesn't even seem to know my husband exists. Or maybe I just didn’t use the right search terms. But Wikipedia does know a little something about middle age:

Middle age is the period of life 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. According to Collins Dictionary, this is "... usually considered to occur approximately between the ages of 40 and 60", The OED gives a similar definition but with a later start point "... the period between youth and old age, about 45 to 60." The US Census lists middle age as including both the age categories 35 to 44 and 45 to 54. Erik Erikson sees it ending a little later and defines middle adulthood as between 40 and 65.

In many Western societies this is seen to be the period of life in which a person is expected to have settled down in terms of their sense of identity and place in the world, be raising a family, and have established career stabilty. It is also a period often associated with the potential onset of mid-life crisis.
I rest my case.

3 comments:

PixieDust August 31, 2007 at 9:02 AM  

This was such a fun post! I tease my husband all the time that he's middle aged (38yrs old), and it bugs him! I'll wait to more years to show him what Wikpedia thinks!

Thanks for the smile!

:-D

Julie Pippert August 31, 2007 at 11:21 AM  

I object to the term "mid-life crisis."

I prefer "adult developmental leap." (ADL)

LOL

And, as parents, we know this can create Affected Behavior.

FWIW, 38 better freaking not be middle-aged, although I acknowledge it as a time of ADL!

Julie August 31, 2007 at 1:16 PM  

Julie (Pippert), if it makes you feel any better, I think I started having a quarter-life crisis after college and STILL haven't outgrown it. And the sad part is, I'm not even sure I can call it an ADL. Sad. : )