Glasses of Aging

"And he smiled at me. And he was wearing reading glasses to show that time had passed."

— John Mulaney, "The Xanax Story"

When a character is given a pair of glasses, either after a Time Skip or through the dictations of future events, as shorthand that they have become Older and Wiser. Or maybe just older.

While not mutually exclusive to the idea, expect the character to have been The Smart Guy of the group (because Smart People Wear Glasses) or have become the Smart Guy, making them a type of Nerd Glasses. Eyesight becoming duller is common as people age. In particular, people tend to find it more difficult to focus on nearby objects as their lenses harden and their eye muscles weaken, possibly making it necessary to wear glasses to read or do fine handiwork.

Compare Bespectacled Cutie, Eyepatch After Time Skip, Glasses Are Sexy, and Stoic Spectacles. See also Eye Glasses and The Glasses Gotta Go.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You:
  • Parodied with Kusuri, who can temporarily age herself up by neutralizing the immortality drug in her system. Her older form has poorer eyesight than her younger form, so she wears glasses when she's aged up.
  • Inverted with Chiyo, who is the youngest of Rentarou's girlfriends (so far) but is one of the few girlfriends to need glasses to see.
  • Suu is a parodied inversion. While she wears glasses and is around Rentarou's age, she looks young enough that she's able to participate in a competition for children.
• Dragon Ball Super: Come the events of this series, Gohan needs glasses in order to see whenever he isn't in his Super Saiyan form. Prior to that, Gohan had no glasses.
• Joseph Joestar from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. He was never known as a frequent glass user, even in his Older and Wiser self in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders (set several decades after JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Battle tendency, the part that introduced him as a character). Then JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable, the fourth part, set a decade after Stardust Crusaders reveals that he aged... badly. He's more senile and has quite a reduced mobility, and he started wearing a small pair of glasses.

Asian Animation

• Lamput: In the episode "Age Remote", when Lamput is changed to a senior citizen by the age remote, he spontaneously gains glasses.

Comic Books

• Disney Ducks Comic Universe
  • The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck: Scrooge starts wearing his distinctive glasses when he moved to Duckburg, where he would eventually build his business empire, which also marks the beginning of his gradual descent to greed and villainy.
  • Scrooge's Love Interest Goldie is shown to be wearing glasses when she and Scrooge reunite after 50 years apart. Until then, she was a bright-eyed and glamorous Femme Fatale.
  • A non-canon illustration by Don Rosa depicting Scrooge's death at age 100 shows a much older Donald and Daisy wearing spectacles as a sign of their more advanced years.

Fanworks

• Pokémpanions: In Growing Apart, when Carla finally reunites with her father Carter for the first time in years, the now-elderly Carter is mentioned to have received glasses, as well as wrinkles and a cane, during the time of her absence.

Films — Animation

• Robots: Herb Copperbottom is shown to have fully-functional eyes in the opening, but by the time his son Rodney becomes an adult, he's shown to need glasses. Seeing as the Copperbottom family is poor, it's likely a cheaper alternative to getting his eyes repaired.
• In The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue, a few years have passed since the first film and Mrs. Brisby is shown to wear glasses (and her Tuft of Head Fur is grey) as a visual indicator that she's become middle-aged.
• Inverted in Turning Red, Ming is shown to have worn glasses when she was about Mei's age but stopped wearing them later in life presumably having switched to contacts to better fit her adult persona.
• Up: While Carl has worn glasses since childhood, Ellie in the "Married Life" sequence isn't seen wearing glasses until the Time-Passes Montage to her elderly years.

Films — Live-Action

• Despite having been a crack-shot Gun Slinger in the previous movies (set 20 years earlier), Marcus from Bad Boys for Life now needs prescription glasses to hit his targets. Throughout the film, his denial of this fact repeatedly puts him in danger until his partner Mike finally manages to convince him to accept and to adapt to his age.
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: While readying to sharpshoot a fleeing assassin, aging hunter Allan Quatermain has to pause to slip on his glasses before making the shot.
• The title character from Logan has to wear reading glasses to emphasize that he's now Dented Iron.
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Bones gives Kirk a pair of glasses on his birthday^note Kirk is allergic to the drug usually prescribed for the condition, which only reinforces his belief that he's getting old and obsolete.

Live-Action TV

• The Brittas Empire: "The Stuff of Dreams" sees Brittas undercover as an elderly man to observe how the centre treats elderly customers, with the disguise emphasized by a pair of glasses that he wears.
• Don't Hug Me I'm Scared: In the first episode "Jobs", after the Carehound conditions Duck to get back to his job, Duck finds out that 40 years have passed and Red Guy, taking the role of their boss Mr. Peterson, has gotten older, with some of his hairs having turned gray and him now wearing glasses.
• In a Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman Christmas Episode based on A Christmas Carol, the "future" sequence (which is happy for once) features a now elderly Michaela hosting Christmas dinner for her family, sporting gray hair. . . and of course, a pair of spectacles.
• Full House: In one episode featuring an Elderly Future Fantasy with Danny, Jesse, Joey, and Becky, future Becky was depicted wearing glasses. She also had gray hair, a grandmother's fashion sense, crooked posture, and a comically large derrière◊ but she had glasses.
• The Muppet Show: In one U.K. short, there's an aged scientist working in a lab mixing chemicals, singing "If I Could Save Time In A Bottle" as he works. He keeps drinking the potions he's putting together, and aging backwards as he does so; one of the changes that happens as he de-ages is that he takes his glasses off.
• Odd Squad: In the Time Skip ending of "Total Zeroes", Olympia, now an elderly woman, is shown wearing futuristic glasses, depicted as a metal headpiece with two red lens.
• Red Dwarf: "Mechocracy" shows that the Cat is getting older when he picks up a pair of reading glasses and finds that he can see the small print better. Unfortunately, Rimmer sees this and uses it as leverage to help him in his campaign for machine president, and the Cat ultimately prioritizes his vanity over his need for glasses.
• Scrubs: In the episode "Their Story", Todd has a fantasy sequence where he imagines himself as a father. During this fantasy, Todd is wearing glasses.
• V.I.P.: In "Sunshine Girls", Val and Sasha fall victim to a Faked Rip Van Winkle scheme where they are made to look like old ladies. For Val, that means wearing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.
• The X-Files: A Running Gag in an episode of the revival seasons is Mulder needing to put on glasses to read pretty much anything. This goes hand-in-hand with his inability to use his smart phone.

Music

• Jonathan Coulton's "Glasses", which went by "Untitled Song About Marriage" and "Upon Turning 40" in its initial live performances, is about parenthood and growing older and includes the line "It's okay/I like you in glasses".
• Mark Hoppus of Blink182 would eventually get glasses as he got older.

Stand-Up Comedy

• John Mulaney ends "The Xanax Story" with a Time Skip where he goes back to the same clinic where he humiliated himself a year prior, and sees the same nurse he had then, pointing out that the nurse is wearing glasses as proof that time had passed.

Theatre

• In the 2000 filmed production of Peter Pan (1954) starring Cathy Rigby, the grown-up Wendy wears glasses in the epilogue, which she didn't wear as a child.

Video Games

• Super Mario Bros.: Toadsworth is an old Toad who wears glasses, but his younger self from Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time doesn't wear them.
• TS!Underswap: The game's iteration of Asgore is given a pair of reading glasses to subtly indicate that he's physically aged compared to his canon counterpart.
• In Xenoblade Chronicles 3, a flashback shows a younger Taion not wearing glasses.

Visual Novels

• In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, Miles Edgeworth, now the new Chief Prosecutor, who did not appear in years since his previous chronological appearance, puts on glasses, which also shows his Older and Wiser personality.

Web Animation

• Adult Arthur: In "Arthur Moves In", Arthur's father Dave is shown to be older as well as wearing eyeglasses like his son.

Webcomics

• Star Butterfly in Echo Creek: A Tale of Two Butterflies is introduced giving Mariposa sage advice about her friendship with Meteora while all Marco can do is argue with her about her safety. Tellingly, she wears a pair of glasses she wasn't wearing when she was a teenager, illustrating that she is all grown up and is much wiser than the Genki Girl she used to be (though she's still a tad eccentric, giving Mariposa a scooter with a siren on it so that she could ignore traffic laws).
• Kevin & Kell: In a 2012 storyline, Kevin ends up needing glasses because he's survived so long and is now old enough that his 360-degree peripheral vision has started to go. He's worn them ever since.

Websites

• Neopets: The Elderly paintbrush, which gives pets an aged look by ways such as giving them Stock Costume Traits, canes, wrinkles, and greying hair or fur, gives many of the pets glasses as part of its color outfits. These include both gendered variants of the Elderly Aisha, Draik, and Eyrie among others.

Western Animation

• After Jimmy ends up turning himself, Carl, and Sheen into old men in the The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius episode "Grumpy Young Men", Sheen sports a pair of reading glasses that he didn't have as a kid.
• Animaniacs: Walter Wolf doesn't wear glasses in Slappy Squirrel's old cartoons, but his older self in the present does. The same applies to Vina Walleen, the actress who played Bumbie's mother in the movie "Bumbie the Dearest Deer" from the episode "Bumbie's Mom".
• Bluey:
  • In "Trains", Chilli and Bingo pretend to be old women and put glasses on.
  • In the future-set ending of "Surprise!", Chilli is shown to wear glasses in her senior age.
• Caillou: In "Caillou is Getting Older", Caillou is trying not to think about age after learning that people die from old age, but he keeps being reminded of it. One of the things is that his father worries that he might need glasses and comments he's getting old.
• In the Duck Dodgers episode "Duck Codgers", Dodgers and the Cadet get infected with an alien pollen that causes those exposed to it to rapidly age. At some point, the Cadet procures a pair of large glasses. When Dodgers questions where he got them, the Cadet asks "what glasses?"
  Duck Dodgers: Where'd you get them giant eyeglasses?
  The Cadet: Eyeglasses? I don't see any giant eyeglasses.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: In "Take This Ed and Shove It", Eddy dreams that in which he and all the other kids have grown old. Here, Edd is shown wearing glasses.
• Gravity Falls: In "A Tale of Two Stans", flashbacks to young Stan show he didn't start wearing glasses until he got older, as seen in a Time-Passes Montage, marking him as different from his genius twin brother. ^note  Flashbacks in the earlier episode "Dreamscaperers" averted this, showing him wearing glasses as a child and young teen, before he Took a Level in Badass, causing a Continuity Snarl. This was mostly due to Early-Installment Weirdness, since the team changed character designers between Seasons 1 and 2, when they solidified Young Stan's appearance.
• In the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue of the The Owl House series finale "Watching and Dreaming", Gus has taken to wearing glasses. Since Gus has become a teacher, they also qualify as Nerd Glasses.
• The Raccoons: Mr. Willow, one of the older characters in the series, wears glasses, but his younger self, as seen in a flashback in "The One That Got Away!", is shown to not need them.
• Regular Show: In the series finale, "A Regular Epic Final Battle", the time skip 25 years later depicts Mordecai with glasses (as well as a beard).
• Winx Club: Faragonda, the elderly headmistress of Alfea, wears small, horn-rimmed glasses. Because of Continuity Snarl, she initially averts this trope but then plays it straight. The third season episode "The Wizards' Challenge" reveals the first glimpse of what Faragonda looked like as a young adult and she has big, round glasses. However, "The Secret of the Lost Kingdom" shows a magical illustration of an adult (of indeterminate age) Faragonda and her glasses are nowhere in sight. A later Continuity Reboot rehauls her appearance but still has her young self not needing glasses. To sum up, from the first movie onward Faragonda's glasses are used to establish her as a senior citizen.

Real Life

• To quell a potential mutiny of Continental forces towards Congress post-Yorktown, General George Washington deliberately put glasses on while speaking to his men, showing that the years of battles affected him too.

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