LOL....Im ten years older than you and in 61 I thought my mother who was 40 at the time, ancient....
I fully expect that when I'm 85, I'll be railing about those old 105-year-olds driving below the speed limit, in the left lane, with their turn signals permanently on.
A forty year old woman in the 60's was old, old, old, she even acted old. I remember my MIL, She was old at 39 when I first met her. She was talking retirement at 39, and not investing, just retiring, and she had that goofy hair-do and was just plain old. That was 1982, she was 39, do the math. You can't compare a forty year old women today, born in the late 50's early 60's to then. And you know what, we are on tail end of the baby boomers. Most 40 year olds don't consider themselves boomers because we were 10 when woodstock happened. We are the tweeners.