When Age Really Becomes a Number

WASHINGTON -- "Ruth, you have a birthday coming up!"

My friend's voice contained an odd note of reproach, faint but unmistakable. The reason quickly became clear.

"You have to get your age off your Facebook profile," my friend said. She is an experienced Washington hand, a former administration official, a woman of, well, an uncertain age; her Facebook page doesn't tell. "Have you lost your mind?"

Well, not yet. I mean, not that I've noticed. But I am about to turn 58. Not ancient, but still: less wunderkind, more eminence grise, although the eminence is debatable and the grise eminently concealable. And, actually, neither wunder nor kind. I once was one of the two, anyway.

Instead, I am old enough that age is a liability. It is a number to be shielded from public view, shaded if possible, mumbled if compelled. You, television booker; you, publisher of new media venture looking for a new editor -- you're probably not wondering: Where can I find a middle-aged woman to sign up?

I remember weighing the matter when creating a Facebook account and deciding, rashly, to include my birth year. What did I have to hide?

But that was 49, this is now. Still in my first half-century, I was probably being naively insouciant about the relevance of aging and the pitfalls of transparency.

This sensitive subject has both a demographic and a gender component.

Every generation confronts the uncomfortable reality that its time is passing and that it is about to be supplanted by the next. Michael Kinsley captures this phenomenon in his new book, "Old Age: A Beginner's Guide," writing about the moment when you are no longer rumored for a plum job opening.

"Even if it's a job you don't want or can't take, it hurts the first time you're not even mentioned as a candidate," Kinsley writes. "It says that in a boomer culture that celebrates youth, you no longer qualify as young. Ouch."

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