To be devastated about this minor thing...

Although I absolutely agree we shouldn’t be fixated I think very few of my friends won’t have had similar thoughts around this

up until 2 years ago when I was asked my age around 50% of people would express surprise. Then it very suddenly stopped. A real pointed difference. Think the answer is menopause. It steals joy and youth from you

Exactly, people who have had work done look their age but with work done, and that's okay.
Get some HRT if you haven't already OP

The only people I know ,who genuinely look very young in their 50s and later are the Filipinos .

I didn't look my age right up to late 40s, and used to get those comments, then menopause comes .... and my ego is adjusting to the aging process. Developing dry eyes in particular has really aged me sadly. We know it's particularly hard in this culture to actually age, if I think about my older relatives in the 70s, I wonder how I can age like them in this climate.

Literally no-one looks significantly different from their actual age.

A well kept /genetically lucky 50 year old looks like a 50 year old that has good skin/hair whatever, not a 35 year old.

Some people have extensive work which makes them think they look younger, but it just makes them look like an insecure older person who has had lots of work done!

As I generally rule I use the "you don't look your age" compliment to people who clearly look like they've had work done or are clearly dressing inappropriately young, as it's obvious that's the reaction they want. I'm well aware roughly what age they are - because they always look it!

I got the OP straight away and found it funny, but I don't get this and I'm not sure if you're trying to be funny. I hope you're being tongue in cheek about the emojis.

If the OP was meant to be tongue in cheek, I’m afraid that completely escaped me. Perhaps a ‘lighthearted’ should have been added? It seemed so heartfelt!

Same, I definitely cry internally a bit every time 😅

I also think it's something to with it taking absolutely forrr-e-vvver to get old enough to buy your own booze and then time passing within the blink of an eye between 20 and 40!!

OP my eldest is only 18 and I'm already getting offended that no one gasps in shock that I could possibly be old enough to have an adult child 😭😭🤣

makes me think of this

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1906168209703754

This thread has turned predictably nasty.

Totally unnecessary.

I couldn’t imagine any world where I got offended or upset no one was falling over themselves in shock or awe rather than thinking I look somewhere within the general age bracket I am actually in 😂

I get what you were trying to do @OP, problem is your writing style didn't embrace humour. You wrote a very bland post, nothing tongue in cheek there, no emoji's to convey humour, and expected everyone to just 'get it'. Sadly, that's not how writing works. Better luck next time .

Used to happen to me, especially when the children were around 12 you don't look old enough etc. However no one looks mildly surprised now when I say my children are in their 50s. In fact I've a growing collection of shawls that people keep buying me for some unknown reason!

I’ve been offered over 60 discounts since I was in my mid fifties! 😊

I was once in Boots at the Clinique counter and I was buying a new lipstick because, as I explained, my daughter had ruined my other one.

The lady on the counter, touched my elbow, and said she didn’t mean to be rude, but I didn’t look old enough to have teenagers daughters.

She laughed when I explained that my daughter was three, and had borrowed the lipstick to play with.

😂😂😂😂

But 26 is a very normal age to have a child? Their lack of audible gasp had absolutely nothing to do with them thinking you look older. You could have had your child at 30 or 19. They aren’t to know. You look vaguely within 10 years of your actual age, congratulations.

Also, the age thing is so over done. Real women don’t see a 40 year old and think “wrinkled and over the hill” - They know that women look good at all ages and the number attached has very little to do with the outward appearance. It’s all very shallow. I might raise a slight eyebrow in recognition if I was very surprised someone I didn’t expect had an older adult DS, but I certainly wouldn’t be gasping and making remarks that they could never.

It might be 16 but they still have to follow Challenge 25.

@Ninerina no worries, in 5 years time you can go to Iceland store on a Tuesday and ask for over 60 discount and when they ask for ID your faith will be restored.

I was asked for id in Dunelm , I am 52 and look it. Some stores just have a blanket policy of asking everyone so staff just get into the habit and don’t have to guess.

You probably look your age so it wasn’t a shock or something to react to. I mean if your son was 39 perhaps I would expect a reaction but having a child at 26 is nothing out of the ordinary.

actually when i was surprised someone was 30 and she was actually annoyed because everyone thinks she is younger than she is.
and i thought it was a compliment

@Ninerina I understand that it makes you feel good, when someone tells you, unasked, that you look younger than you actually are. I too have been told that, over the years, from time to time and it does raise my morale. No question.

Having said that, I don't expect it at all. Some people are not good at judging someone else's age. I take it as a compliment when I get it, but would never be disappointed if no-one commented.

For what It's worth, it didn't happen much at all when I was in my 50's to mid-sixties, but since I reached my early 70's, I've had a couple of people recently say I don't look it!

There’s nothing wrong with growing old gracefully. People always make nice comments saying you don’t look your age when actually you do and they are just being nice. It’s a fact of live. We all get old etc. the grey hair the wrinkles , the sagging skin just got to accept it .

I feel your pain OP. I'm 48 and have a 25 year old and used to get shocked looks and comments like "were you very young when you had her?" regularly. To be honest, that used to piss me off a bit as at 23, I was hardly a schoolgirl pregnancy.

I still think I look young for my age but I think it's more a case of people doing the maths less once you're over 35/40. Which I suppose is all part of the wider tragedy of society writing off women as we pass reproductive age. Sigh.

oh how dare they!
now i have understood it was meant to be funny