How many of you have had this question/comment directed at you? One, perhaps two of you? In actual fact out of my friends, acquaintances, past school friends and work colleagues, random people I have spoken to the bus, NOBODY else I know has been asked this question. Not one. Prove me wrong now 
As I am quickly heading down the steep path to 30 which hits me later this year, I thought that now at last I may stop being asked for ID, getting funny looks and comments when I am seen out with my children, shocked looks when telling people my real age. But no - I don’t feel that it will ever end!
Very recently I have had a serious amount of grey hair appearing, especially at the front of my hair, and I have left it in for effect. I even chopped a fringe which shows it up even more, but has is made any difference? No. Nobody seems to notice!
But why does the ‘age thing’ bother me so much? Truthfully, in many ways, I love it. I relish telling people my real age when they guess badly; I love their facial expressions, open mouths, gasps (yes, it does happen, honest). However, there are times when it is quite annoying and even upsetting. I do enjoy looking young for my age - just not all the time.
Once, when I was pregnant with my 4 year old Nicholas, I was getting on the bus to town when a group of people started shouting that I was far too young to be pregnant, and how disgraceful it was that I was going to be a teenage Mum. I was 25.
More recently, it has been the incredibly nasty looks and comments I have received from people convinced I am a teenage Mum. These nasty people think that you are a bad parent, you need parenting advice, and that they can say anything to you and it doesn’t matter - you are only a stupid teenager. If you could be a fly on the wall during these events you would seriously not believe how horrible people can be. It doesn’t help that I don’t wear a ring on my finger (besides, I don’t do rings anyway), but for people to assume I am a single teenage Mum without a clue how to care for my own children is abhorrent.
Then there is the other side - those who are surprised at how well looked after my children seem, and that I am not wearing jogging bottoms and ‘bling’ jewellery, and even seem like a normal person! I have heard ‘It’s nice you can keep your children clean when you are so young’, ‘young mothers are often the best you know, don’t let anyone else tell you any different’ (nice comment but unfortunately I am not a young mother!). Thankfully I can live with these!
I remember being 21 years old when I went into a shop for some cigarettes, armed with my passport and birth certificate. Yes, I know smoking is bad for your health, which is why I don’t do it any more! Anyhoo, the shopkeeper escorted me from the premises - physically! He was so incredibly rude, and obviously had no intention of even listening to my protests, never mind looking at my ID!
Nowadays when I am buying a little tipple for the weekend I still am forced to go to the shop armed with identification - my trusty passport. I don’t go anywhere without it, and it has got to the stage that when I find I have left it at home I have a mini panic attack. Indeed when I DO have the passport and am buying alcohol I am a nervous wreck at the checkout. My heart pounds, I have butterflies, and I often shake a little, it all doesn’t help when I am pleading sincerely that the girl with the bleached blonde hair in my passport is me! Note to self: get new passport with recent brunette photo.
I am dieting and it seems the more weight I lose the worse it gets, and I also think the swept fringe was a mistake as it has knocked another couple of years off me! Last week I was with my two children and the checkout lady though I was 16. Honest! Throughout the entire transaction - even after showing her my ID - she stared at me suspiciously, and kept asking me questions like ‘have you always been healthy to look so young?’ and ’are most people shocked when you tell them your age?’ and so on. I felt like a bloody monkey in a zoo!
It is nice when I go to my local co-op as I do know a few of the people there well having visited the shop for the last 5 years, so I am a kind of in-joke for new staff when I buy alcohol! They never believe I am 29!
From this post I seem like a real alcoholic, trust me I’m not! Just memories from shop visits for my weekend drink, as we don’t go out and we don’t drink during the week!
Anyway, another good event was when I visited a health food shop and the shopkeeper said I look terribly young for my age - like a teenager - but he guessed I must be in my late twenties. See, its nice when people say I look young, but realise that in actual fact I am not as young as I look. I like that. More please!
Photos of me are not a good indication of how young I look, as I do appear more youthful in real life. Not sure why - maybe photos do tell the truth, as they say?
I know, I should enjoy looking young, and I will enjoy it when I get older, etc, etc…only people have been saying that to me for the past 15 or so years and I still don’t enjoy it all the time!
Maybe when I am closer to the big 40!
