I may feel old all the time, but the only time I’m actually old is at school. Being born in September of two thousand and four makes me one of the oldest people in my grade, but outside of school, I’m usually with those older than me. I am the younger sister, the youngest cousin out of seventeen (the oldest is thirty-two), the youngest out of my eight family friends (pretty much my surrogate cousins), and I tend to work jobs where I work with adults.
This made me mature really quickly which, in turn, makes me seem a lot older than I actually am. When I was twelve I got asked if I had gotten my driver’s license. Last week when I turned eighteen, I talked to my grandfather on the phone and he, who coincidentally has the same birthday as me, asked where I went to college so he could mail me my birthday card. The fact that I am pretty tall- and got tall at a young age- didn’t really help indicate my true age either.
I chalk most of my early maturity up to having a sister who’s four years older than me. To be able to get attention from her, fit in with her friends, follow the same trends as her, and understand her jokes I had to behave her age. Now when I hang out with my sister’s friends I get treated like I’m twenty-one and my sister and I act almost identically despite the age difference. One time, when my sister was thirteen and I was nine, she touched my Elf on the Shelf, Clarice, at our annual Christmas Eve party where we invite all of our family friends and cousins. I think I cried for twenty minutes. Now, whenever anyone who was there to see it brings up that story, I have to bitterly remind them that I truly was just a kid when that happened. Sometimes, I think even our parents forget how far apart we are in age; we started doing our own laundry at the same time, we were able to be home alone starting at the same time, and we got phones and were allowed to use social media at the same time. Every so often it feels a little unfair that my sister got almost four more years of childhood but feeling like a victim gets old fast and at the end of the day I like being mature. I was debating if I wanted to take this the “My childhood was robbed because I was forced to grow up fast” route so I searched on Quora for “How does it feel to grow up too fast?” and I wasn’t feeling it. The answers made me depressed and I didn’t really fit into that category.
In some form or another, I’ve been on social media since twenty-twelve (eight years old). I was
on Instagram when it looked like this:
Having unrestricted access to social media and pretty much all of the internet at such a young age feels wrong but in retrospect, probably benefited me. I was exposed to different opinions and cultures and was able to proudly express my creativity (embarrassing or not).
Right before school ended sophomore year I got a job as a hostess at a restaurant. My biggest complaint from there was that I thought I wanted to work with people my own age but all of the other employees were at least twenty-one or older. So, summer between Junior and senior year I decided to start working at a movie theater where the average employee age was significantly lower. I liked it, but I decided to not work during the school year. I think in the same week I quit I got a text from one of my family friends asking if I was interested in waitressing at a restaurant two nights a week. I thought about it and figured I had time so I decided to check it out. Currently, I’m really enjoying it which, big surprise, proves I function better working and interacting with adults.
What have I gained from maturing at a young age, though? If anything, being exposed to pop culture and different opinions, getting along better with people older than me, and constantly trying to act older than forced me to enjoy observing others’ behavior and also being able to get along with many different groups of people.
Hi Lauren! I definitely understand what you are saying. I can totally relate to this in a completely different way. Just like you, when I was growing up, I was very close to my family friends. In 2018, the ages ranged from eighteen to nine years old. I was fourteen at that time. But, although you may say that although I was near the oldest, there were three kids all above me in the same grade, and there were four below all in the same grade below me. This caused a conflict within me because I had to either act around the same way the older kids did, or I had to revert back a year to my prior self. It was a fairly easy decision for me to make because my sister fell into the group of kids younger than me so I choose to hang out with the older kids more. But I did have to mature to an extent because I didn’t want their friends to judge me at birthday parties, etc. I also liked how you talked about your story with the elf on the shelf because I had a similar thing happen except I was the older sister in the situation. When I was younger, I found out in 3rd grade that neither the Elf nor Santa wasn’t real by accident. But my innocent little sister either didn’t know or pretended until 5th grade. That was 3 years where I pretended it was real just for her. Throughout those 3yearss I put myself in charge of moving the Elf every night. One night my sister caught me doing so, so I pretended like I had done it on accident. I don’t know how she believed that one but she did. This caused me to mature fastener than other people because having a younger sister almost meant in my eye when I was younger that I was to be a responsible older sister that always looked out for my younger sister.
Lauren, I really liked your bog and I feel like I learned a lot more about you in turn. I remember seeing you at the movie theater!
As the youngest of three siblings. My eldest brother being six years older and the other four years, I also feel like my parent’s expectations were the same for me as for them. Everytime they had a new expectation, so did I. Although there are negatives, I also like to see the positve light – getting a phone earlier 😉
Regarding the social media aspect, I still do not know to this day if it was an advantage or disadvantage having access to it at such a young age. On one had, I agree that we got be exposed to different perspectives and create our own unique opinions. On the other hand, it also exposed us to the negative influences and standards – like the beauty standard for example. Even today at seventeen years old I do not know if I am enjoying social media or dwelling on how my life pales in comparison to other’s.
Alll in all, I found your blog post very enlightening and enjoyable to read. It also made me reflect on some of my own experiences; I hope to read more!
Hello Lauren! Reading your blog definitely allowed me to feel more familiar with you. I’m kind of the opposite of your situation, I’m the youngest in my family, the youngest cousin, my birthday is also may of 2005, which is late but I guess not too late. My relatives would often ask me if I was in 8th grade and I’d have to break the news that I was much older than they thought. I do know where you’re coming from with having to mature faster because of an older sibling. I feel like even now I try to fit in with my sister and her friends (but I’m definitely not too good at it). In terms of social media, I agree that it helped cultivate our own viewpoints and opened our eyes to the society around us, and I definitely feel like there were both negative and positive influences, but in my opinion, I think that the negatives were introduced to me way too soon. I’m glad that you’re enjoying your current job and I hope that it continues to be something you like doing. Overall I really enjoyed reading your blog and seeing the slight differences between our experiences but also seeing the slight similarities that we had growing up. Thank you for sharing!