A few days ago, I went to cast a vote in my local election with my mom at the polling place right around the block. Upon our arrival, the volunteers kept telling me that I needed to be by my mom’s side for the entirety of the voting process. My mother is fully capable of casting her vote by herself, so I was utterly confused as to why I had to be attached to her hip. After a few moments of confusion, I finally mustered up the courage to ask the volunteers why this was happening.
“You’re a minor. You must be accompanied by someone 18 or older to be here.”
My 20th birthday was two months ago.
After showing the woman my ID, she apologized, but was still in disbelief that I wasn’t 15. Later that day, two DMV attendants could not wrap their heads around the fact that I was even old enough to drive a car. I am about to be a third-year college student, and I can only imagine that someone (if not multiple people) will ask me if I need help finding anything on my college campus. Does this happen to anyone else? I envy those who actually look their age, because being questioned about being an adult is a daily occurrence and it’s getting old.
Although all of the above people were shocked about my age, their judgment could definitely be justified. Firstly, I am pretty short. To most, height is associated with age. A taller individual automatically is considered to be older than someone that's a significant amount shorter than them. In my case, I can walk around my old middle school and be looking up at the seventh graders. My height is completely out of my control until society invents a human taffy puller. Secondly, I have a baby face, and keep my makeup pretty natural looking. I’m sure I could add a few years to my face if I wore more makeup than I do now. However, I value 10 more minutes of sleep more than I value putting 10 more minutes of effort into my face for the day. I am not saying that the amount of makeup that one wears is a direct correlation with how old they look, but in my baby face case, a little more makeup wouldn’t hurt. As a whole, I have a very child-like body shape. I’m one step away from being flat chested, I have extremely small hands and my feet are tiny enough to fit into children’s shoes. Now there is not a body type that is specific to someone who is 20 years old, but if there was, my body isn’t it. Don’t get me wrong, being small is not a bad thing! I rarely have to worry about my chest falling out of dresses, kids shoes are cheaper than adult shoes and I can always reach my phone when it falls down the black hole between the seat in the car and the center console.
As terrible as I made it sound, looking younger than my age is actually not that bad. It’s surely a first world problem, but it has its advantages. When I order a kid’s meal, I never get a strange look. Buying a child’s ticket at the movie theater is no problem. Plus, tweens love me because I’m not a scary looking adult. I’ll be thankful for looking younger than my age when I’m old enough for it to really matter.
