Reality check

Not long ago, I was in a store trying on a pair of boots with my daughter and her friend. I'd tucked my jeans into the boots and was walking around to get the feel.

"Those look great," said Sarah. "You definitely ought to get them."

Then my daughter chimed in. "Yeah, but she's too old."

I winced. Maybe I am too old for that look. Lately I've been asking myself a new question in the dressing room. Not just, "Are these colors good for me?" or "Does this fit?" But: "Am I too old to wear this?"

My mother's generation of women did not have this problem. They wouldn't have dreamed of wearing short skirts in middle age, or leather boots or, God forbid, jeans. No, they had the opposite issue: Many of them looked downright matronly in their 40s, wearing suits or shirtwaist dresses with sensible pumps and pocketbooks when going out. Casual wear would be a pair of slacks or a pantsuit - with an elastic waist.

Today, mothers and daughters regularly reach into each other's closets. My own daughter - the one with the critical eye - is not above borrowing stuff from "old" me. And when she graduated from college last May, she left behind clothes for the Goodwill, a few of which I filched.

For women in their late 40s and older, there are certain items of clothing that are just wrong, no matter how fit you are. No micro-minis. No low-rise jeans. No plunging necklines (Goldie Hawn, are you listening?) And never, ever any "belly shirts," even if you have abs of steel.

Sandy Gradman is co-owner of The Studio, a stylish Brookline clothing store that has been in business for 30 years. In a newsletter article titled "Crossing the Line," she and partners Ilene Epstein and Marcie Brawer described the blurring of fashion lines between today's generations. They wrote a headline: "You're not actually going out looking like that . . . are you?" Then the punch line: "Is that you talking to your daughter or is it your daughter talking to you?"

With modern "ageless women," it's often hard to tell when you cross that line between stylish and silly. It's sort of like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's take on pornography. He couldn't precisely define it, he said: "But I know it when I see it."

Gradman, Epstein, and Brawer have made the same pact many of us women have made with our girlfriends: If we look ridiculous wearing something, we'll tell each other. (Note: The same rule may be considered hazardous if employed by husbands or boy-friends.)

"It's really hard to define that line," Gradman says. "This boomer generation is unique, more vibrant and active than previous generations. You want to be stylish, you want to make a statement, but you don't want to look inappropriate." The real problem, she says, is the fashion industry, which is so youth-oriented.

All of this goes to the fact that we boomers are, much to our astonishment, actually getting old. We were the generation that said, "Don't trust anyone over 30." Now that we're over 40, we prefer to fall back on our parents' adage: Life begins at 40.

I've always expected certain people in my life to be older than I am. My doctor, for instance. (She is.) My boss. (He isn't.) Definitely my president. Things were fine until Barack Obama came along - at age 47. And of course, my expectation is only getting more and more difficult to achieve.

Boomers are guilty of not accepting aging: "50 is the new 40" is our story, and we're sticking to it. The truth is, lots of us are going to live to be very old. And possibly quite poor, a bad combination. When Social Security was put into place in 1935, people generally retired by age 65. The average life expectancy then was about 62 years. Today, it's about 78.

For the tsunami of boomers who are starting to retire, there's little security in Social Security, even though we've paid into it for decades. Employee pension plans hardly exist anymore. And our 401(k)'s are sinking faster than the Titanic.

It's all so depressing I might have to go out and buy myself that pair of boots. But I won't be tucking in my jeans.