{"id":5251,"date":"2018-12-05T13:01:20","date_gmt":"2018-12-05T18:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.silvercentury.org\/?p=5251"},"modified":"2018-12-10T16:51:42","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T21:51:42","slug":"he-wants-the-law-to-change-his-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/2018\/12\/he-wants-the-law-to-change-his-age\/","title":{"rendered":"He Wants the Law to Change His Age"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 69-year-old man has petitioned the courts in the Netherlands for the right to say he\u2019s 20 years younger than his actual age: he wants his birth certificate altered to show that he was born in 1949 rather than 1969. That wouldn\u2019t be so different, he argues, from letting people who are transgender change their gender on their birth certificates\u2014apparently you can do that in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

At first, as I read the Guardian<\/em>\u2019s news story about Emile Ratelband\u2019s petition<\/a>, he had my sympathy. He complained that because of his age, he was unable to get a mortgage and it was hard to find jobs. He was also getting nowhere on the dating site Tinder. Because he was 69, he either got no responses on Tinder, he claimed, or he heard only from women who were his age. (That\u2019s where he lost my sympathy. What\u2019s wrong with women who are 68 or 69?)<\/p>\n

Ratelband, by profession a motivational speaker and TV personality, also declared that doctors had told him he had the body of a 45-year-old and that he felt \u201cabout 40 or 45.\u201d<\/p>\n

That stopped me for a minute. When I was in my 30s, a dentist told me I had \u201can old mouth.\u201d Not good news. When I was in my 70s, our family doctor said, reading test results, that I had \u201cthe bones of a 30-year-old.\u201d I\u2019m now 83. If you add up the ages of all my various body parts and average them, how old am I now? And should I be allowed to claim that age?<\/p>\n

At first, Ratelband\u2019s legal maneuver seemed to me like a clever argument against ageism. Maybe he wasn\u2019t serious about becoming 49 under the law but was mounting an attention-getting protest against age discrimination.<\/p>\n

But a video that accompanied the news story suggests that he really means it. Speaking into the camera, Ratelband fantasizes about how his life will be transformed if he\u2019s allowed to change his age.<\/p>\n

\u2026 when I\u2019m really 49 again, I will have a baby again, I will buy a new car again\u2026 invest my money again. Because now I\u2019m an old man, I have to save my money to give to my kids so they can live. But if I have that age again, I have hope again. I\u2019m new again. And the whole future is there for me again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He\u2019s trying to find the fountain of youth in a courtroom, and life just doesn\u2019t work that way.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a satisfied 83. I wouldn\u2019t want to be younger. I know so much more now than I did at, say, 73, and I\u2019m still learning. I realize that my good health won\u2019t hold up forever and that I\u2019m not immortal, but why waste the years I have left, wishing I were younger?<\/p>\n

Now if there were a way to stay<\/em> 83 in actual, physical fact, I might go for that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 69-year-old man has petitioned the courts in the Netherlands for the right to say he\u2019s 20 years younger than his actual age: he wants his birth certificate altered to show that he was born in 1949 rather than 1969.…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more He Wants the Law to Change His Age<\/span> ›<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

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