Aging Well?

Some people at the upper reaches of Boomerdom are obsessed with youth. Youth is still the measure of worth, it seems. Mid-term Boomers worry about turning 50. Gen-Xers obsess over turning 40. Does any of this really matter?

This is on my mind today because I heard the comment that “Kevin Bacon certainly isn’t aging well.” Exactly what does that mean?

Here is a recent picture of Kev:













Here he is in Footloose:

Of course he looks older! He was 26 when he made Footloose and looked like the 17-year-old he played. He’s 48 now … a Boomer.

Is he not aging well because he looks his age? Because he no longer looks 26? Or 17? Forty eight isn’t old, and forty-eight looks younger now than it did in the 1960’s, for example. Our definition of age has changed.

What about Kevin’s wife Kyra Sedgewick?

The same person who told me Kevin Bacon isn’t aging well couldn’t believe Kyra is Kevin’s wife. Why? Because Kyra looks “so old.” Kyra is seven years younger than her husband.

She plays the lead in the new TV series “The Closer.” Among other things, her complicated character is concerned about turning forty.





Kyra’s first on-screen acting began at age 16 on the soap Another World. Even though we barely know her, we’ve seen her in dozens of films with superstars ranging from Tom Cruise (Born On The Fourth Of July) to Julia Roberts (Something To Talk About) to John Travolta (Phenomenon). She was born 8 months after the youngest Boomer.


The person who made these age comments is a 50-something like me. Neither of us looks like we did at age 17 or 26. But neither of us looks 50-something. We both battle weight gain and hair loss. We each reach for glasses to read anything smaller than this. Some people might say we aren’t aging well either. I would disagree.

I said in the very first post on this blog that I’m uncomfortable with saying my age out loud. One reason is because I don’t want people to assume anything about my attitudes, abilities or health because of my age.

For Boomers and everyone else, age is just the number you get when you subtract the year of your birth from the current year. It is part of who we are but it does not have to define us.