Officially Stefny

I look very young.

I was reminded of this over the weekend when I finally met my teacher/internship supervisor in person.

She thought I was around 24.

Most people in my job who don’t work with me directly think I’m around the same age.

When I was a TA in grad school, my students thought I was around the same age.

When I actually WAS 24, my boss (who had access to my resume/personnel files???) thought I was 19.

When I was in college, people at church always asked me what grade I was in.

When I was in high school working at Sonic, I had to produce my ID for a cop once because they thought I was being exploited for child labour.

This is very much a double-edged sword. I’ve been told my whole life that I’d be happy for this when I was older. And sure, I admit, I’d rather people think I was younger than older. I mean, there was a girl at my school who was several years younger than me, but when she was 12 she looked 20. She played it up, too.

But I find that people always treat me differently when they figure out my true age. Like it’s somehow my fault they thought I was younger and then they expect different things from me.

Like I mentioned earlier, I’m taking classes and doing internships. I’m on a new track in life and just because I’m older than you think I am, that doesn’t mean I know everything that’s going on. I’m still new to this and learning.

I wish I had some nuggets of wisdom to tie this all together, but the fact is that it’s frustrating. People don’t take me seriously when they think I’m young, and when they do know how old I am they treat me like I should be a seasoned professional at things I don’t know.