My late and beloved mother refused to use an Israeli senior citizen bus card when she was way over the age to qualify. When I asked her why, she shrugged, “No one needs to know how old I am.” 

Mom never left the house inelegantly dressed or without beauty-enhancing makeup, so I considered her use of a younger person card a touch of pleasant vanity. Now that I’m officially a senior citizen, I’m wondering whether it was wisdom or a generational embarrassment that informed her decision. 

My mother was spry and clearheaded until the final years of her life, and could have flaunted her ability to keep up with the young folks in her aerobics class or boasted about her concentration levels – she read three books a week. Maybe she feared inviting in the evil eye by pronouncing aloud the number of her years.   

Maybe she understood ageism before the term was used. Was ageism, with its negative stereotypes and pressure to remain youthful, so embedded in her mindset that not mentioning her age had become a habit of avoiding judgment? 

There’s even a toxic concept called “internalized age shaming” when older people feel guilty, ashamed, or embarrassed about their age. That certainly doesn’t help make the growing-old pains of age easier. 

In a 2024 study by the giant American Association of Retired People that actually deals with seniors who aren’t retired, two-thirds (64%) of workers have reported seeing or experiencing age discrimination in the workplace – even though it’s officially illegal. This study says that “older workers” can be as young as 51! 

So the question remains: Should we be so free with our ages once the number climbs past the culturally comfortable? Should age be a badge of success or like a code we keep tucked in our wallets when we can’t remember which PIN goes with which credit card? Living in Israel, where strangers have few inhibitions about asking the most personal questions, how should we respond? 

The late Prof. Yoram Maaravi, a leading Israeli figure in geriatrics whom I knew at Hadassah Medical Organization, always belittled the “anti-aging” industry. He always said that we need to be “pro-aging.” 

It’s easy to misjudge reactions to revealing one’s age. Once, when I was swimming at the YMCA, I couldn’t help myself from giving advice to a young man who, otherwise fit, was a particularly inept swimmer who was turning his head 90 degrees with every stroke. He thanked me and tried it. Later, he asked me how old I was.  

I took his reaction that I was his grandmother’s age as a compliment. When I related this to one of our grandsons of similar age, he rolled his eyes. No young man would want to get athletic tips from someone else’s grandmother, even if she was once a summer camp swimming teacher like me. 

I understand my mother’s insistence on only revealing her age with a reluctant sigh when a doctor was examining her. She felt vulnerable revealing her true tally of years. It invites judgments, a report card of sharpness and relevance, and a reading of the map of lines on our faces. 

To get some perspective on this issue, I consult Tova Weinberg, a senior woman who frequently deals with the question of whether or not to reveal age. Weinberg is one of the Jewish world’s most experienced and successful matchmakers.  

Fixing up seniors is her specialty. Weinberg is the co-founder of SawYouAtSinai.com, the popular and successful service that combines online profiles with experienced matchmakers. She took on this profession (Weinberg actually qualified as a dentist) to counter intermarriage. She and her husband moved from Pittsburgh to Israel. 

Since 2003, the site SawYouAtSinai has made 2,530 matches, according to its daily tally. Weinberg herself modestly only takes credit for 374 marriages. 

Shadchanut, matchmaking, is often associated with a certain measure of, shall we say, embellishment and veiling. 

Weinberg prefers to call it “fudging.” She provides an example. 

“A widower aged 55 said he wanted to marry someone five years younger,” she says. “He had just gone through the painful bereavement for his wife and wanted to marry someone younger. 

 “I had the perfect match for him, but she was 60. So, I told him that I didn’t know exactly how old she was, but she looks as if she’s in her 40s. They hit it off right away and are happily married. He told me that he would not have gone out with her if I’d told him she was five years older, and has thanked me often for making the introduction. 

 “Of course, for this couple, the question of having children is no longer relevant, as it would be for a potential young couple. 

“Age is just two little numbers, and I never recommend that a couple discuss age on their first date. Maybe their fifth date is about right. I sometimes tell a couple that ‘I’m not going to discuss age’ until they meet. The question is whether or not they click.” 

When she’s not getting beyond people’s reluctance to meet someone who isn’t in their idealized age group, Weinberg thinks it’s important to be matter-of-fact about your age. Whatever it is, claim your age without shrinking, and be proud of it. By the way, she’s 72. 

Ironically I was recently trying to get a handle on artificial intelligence and signed up for the paid version of ChatGPT, I was locked out because I hadn’t provided proof of my age! Somehow, the all-wise ChatGPT insisted that I lived in Italy, where you have to be at least 18 to use ChatGTP. After numerous failed trials, when I almost summoned grandchildren to help, I managed to pass a simplified test, taking a selfie from my laptop, posing with my passport.  

I had to hold my passport with precision; the computer kept ordering me to move back, move center, remove glare – until I got it right. I received an email congratulating me on passing the test, as if it were the bar exam. 

Now that I’m approved, I try ChatGPT on our question of whether or not to be forthright or coy about age. “Our years are the map of Israel: the wars survived, the children raised under sirens, the moments when we held our breath together, the miracles we counted – sometimes in daylight, sometimes in darkness” 

Pretty good for a secular computer. 

There is copious advice on the Internet that touts proactive announcements of age. It says seniors should “live truthfully, to give people a chance to see what we’ve accomplished.” There are equally strong voices saying that we should never give out our age, and they provide polite but lighthearted ways of discussing it – e.g., “old enough to drink legally,” “old enough to remember when phones had cords… but young enough to still lose my phone daily.” 

There is, of course, the advantage of seniors riding free on Israeli public transportation, which even my dear mom might have agreed to, now that the lower age is only 63  

I never liked the statement, attributed to diverse authors and with slight differences, that youth “is too important to be wasted upon the very young.” 

Who of us would want to live again the emotional challenges of a teenager?