To be devastated about this minor thing...

I was once given a very sage piece of advice: 'what other people think of you is none of your business'.

You'd be in a healthier place OP if you remembered this.

In my area, you could easily have a 29 yo DC and be mid 40s so I really wouldn't worry too much about it.

What if you were like the person I described in a pp who genuinely gets mistaken for 15 years younger. People often look at her as if she's from outer space when they find out her age so how should she react? She has also been asked if her DH the same age as her is her father. I know for a fact she absolutely hates it,especially the responses from women her own age & younger, as we've spoken about it. I know the family well & her mother & other close family members are the same.

Ooh this is good news! I'm 53 and my eldest is approaching 29, and honestly I hate this. Some people are nice with it, but some people do this faux shock thing that I'm supposed to take as a compliment. I think I look my age. Hopefully in a couple of years people will think I'm old though to have a thirty year old.

I'm not at all fixated on how I look - you know this if you saw me. I rarely get my hair cut, I'm not covering the grey. I don't wear make up or bother with a skincare routine. There are definitely 53 year olds that look much better than I do. So I just don't really care for other people making comments on how I look.

No one there knew her age as it was a new group.

And yes, she is saying she doesn’t like being told she looks her age! Lol

I don’t think it’s surprising that after always being told she looks younger it’s jarring to not have it said.

Youth and beauty are highly coveted in our society. Billion dollar industries capitalize on it.

Many moons ago a gypsy I had been nice to told me I would never look my age. A year ago and a month my DH died suddenly when we were alone in the house - that is he had a cardiac arrest, his heart beat on (once restarted) for 18 days. I aged ten years by my reckoning in those 18 days. Said to DD I look much older now and she said, you don't, you just don't look happy any more. I said, but I look my age now. She laughed, and said have you looked at other people your age lately?
Which is nice. But at some point we all tip into looking our age. No point being devastated at 55 by people who think it's okay/reasonable you have a son of 29. Waiting expectantly for them to say 'Never! You only look 30' is a bit silly.

Why should they be shocked? Presumably some of them know your age? Are you suggesting you don't like being told you look 55? Or what?

There are people who genuinely do look far younger than their age OP. I know someone who now refuses to tell people her sons exact age & quickly replies with they've grown-up & left home now. She was asked for ID in bars when in her late 30s & on it goes. People who say this is fantasy are wrong. It can be a genetic thing where people don't age as quickly as the average person. I'ts the same with men.

My god, the number of people on this thread who don’t understand that the OP was being flippant (about something that affects most of us at some stage in their life).

OP, my ‘Oh my god I don’t look young any more’ moment was when I went to France (for the umpteenth time in my life) and realised that suddenly everyone had started calling me Madame instead of Mademoiselle.

I'm 59 and I look 60!!! 😲
Slightly off track but I work with teenagers and I have a theory that the teens I work with generally think that you are a similar age as their care giver. Therefore I've been aged between 38 and 56!! 😆

do you have grey hair?

Is there something wrong with looking your age then?

I say that as someone who is still told they don’t look anything like their age, so probably with limited understanding and sympathy 😆

I wouldn't worry too much about it. I'm so wrinkly in my 40s that I've been mistaken for my 7 year old DCs'...Granny. 😭😂

Obviously OP likes to think she looks young for her age and loves to bask in comments of amazement

Didn't work this time tho did it OP.
Seems like aging has caught up with you

Exactly this. I agree, try to stop caring, OP. Honestly if this is all you can get worked up about, I envy you

I get it Ninerina up until two years ago I was always taken for much younger than my age. 56 now and hear it no more.

Well obviously you are being unreasonable to be so very upset that people are not surprised that you have a 29 year old son at 55.

On the other hand, I am 53 and my kids are only 21 and 22 and people do sometimes express surprise (especially in a low light!) and I am always secretly pleased when they do. And slightly disappointed if they don't.

Maybe within this group most people had their children relatively young (whereas the people I know are generally older parents)

@Ninerina I get it! I've not read all of the thread, but I understand you're being mostly tongue in cheek and it's just a bit of fun 😁
I have a similar age difference with my DD and know what you mean about the comments being nice!

Do you not think they felt awkward because of you having a 29 year old son still living with you? I know it is pretty much the norm nowadays because of cost of living, so it wouldn't shock me, but really when you tell someone that they have no where to go with it but smile and nod surely?

I think rather than the age thing, they were in the mindset that if you've got nothing nice to say don't say anything at all, but they are probably thinking poor you, that you've not managed to get rid of him yet!

There’s nothing wrong with being 55 unless you’re trying to look 25.

Look at it another way OP. I'm 5 years older than you. When our mothers were girls, it was very common for people to look 15-20 years older than they were. Hard physical labour in the home and outside and an older way of dressing and doing their hair put years on women and men and people might have struggled to believe that you were young enough to have a son still in his thirties. It's very common now for women much older than us to not look like little old ladies - or is it that little old ladies don't look the way they did forty or fifty years ago so people think nothing of it?

Omg im the same 😅. I just turned 39 but had been getting asked for ID until 36 then poof just stopped- overnight, and not a glimmer of hesitation at the till when buying a bottle of wine now 😢
Its quite sobering 😕😂

I know what you mean OP. I had my kids later so never got it for that, but I used to get a lot of young comments and I still (sometimes) get a shock reaction when people find out my age (48). You get used to it! I am having a rough time with perimeno, stress and ageing parents at the mo and suspect by the time I'm 50 I will have aged a lot. So I'm enjoying it while it lasts!

I still occasionally get asked for ID at almost 37, but I'm very aware it won't last much longer! And actually it's a pain in the arse cos I don't always have my purse with me. I had my eldest when I was 19 and so people are sometimes shocked at his age but where I live it's not uncommon. It does sound like you need to adjust your hopes for people to be astounded.

So sad for people to think that you might be in your 50s, when you're in your 50s!

My advice is to get Botox and filler, you'll get that look of a middle aged woman who has had work done, but no one will know if you're 45 or 65, though this means they'd be too scared to comment on your age. But you will get to tell them how amazing your plastic surgeon is, and people will tell you that you look great (to your face).

I write this as 'one of your people', had to bring my passport with me to get into bars well into my 20s, colleagues on my graduate job though I was a school leaver, I was not taken seriously as too young into my 40s etc. So somehow I straddle the two groups you identify of 'looks young' and 'miserable old hag'.