I told them elderly because when this discussion happened in my life, I was too young like 12, my relatives were in 35/40. Everyone treated them like elder women.But it in today's times, as u said women doesn't become elderly at certain age group and this we know and accept because we see it happening now in our movies, serials, even in our day to day life too. This was not the case earlier where it was just ramayana and Mahabharata on TV, no internet. We hardly had cases where women would be doing anything for herself with her own choice and if they come across any such woman even in newspaper (ex:Indira Gandhi) they would be in awe of her but rarely would follow their footsteps thinking such steps are better for bade log and not for common people.
So u were narrating a childhood incident ....so it's fine ... Ya I know things have changed a lot.