I am not, by any means, a young mom.
When my parents were my age I was in the ninth grade.

There is something about having a kindergarten child that makes me feel like a freshman.  When I meet parents of older kids (there is a lot of meeting other parents at Jacob's school, there is always something for parents to do, so you can drop by on your lunch break or comp time or day off and do something for/at the school) I feel new and inexperienced and raw and a little bit stupid and a lot bit green around the edges.  Not because anyone makes me feel that way, really.  Everyone has been really nice and open and "we're a big family"ish.  It's just me.  My issue.  I'm not all that mentally great at being new at anything.  I like to be seasoned and practiced and ripe.  In charge.  There isn't a whole lot of competency or versedness or familiarity involved when your kid is just starting his school-aged years.

When people find out how old I am, they are usually surprised.  I don't look my age I guess.  I'm pretty sure I act my age.  Sometimes people tell me I'm really mature for my age.  That's a weird sort of complement, because I think I act my age and assume they just don't know what that is.
I get hung up on this sort of stuff, and feel like my head gets patted in that "good girl" way by older adults.  The patting probably is more inside my head than on top of it.  An insecurity or something else left over from childhood.

I don't like to be/feel patronized. 
I usually tell people I'm three years older than I actually am.

So when I am in Jacob's school, surrounded by moms of 1st - 8th graders who have been there and done this and gotten through what I'm getting through, I feel very young.  Figuratively speaking.

And literally.

I assumed that most of the moms in Jacob's class would be somewhere between 25 and 30.  Moms who had their kids around the time when moms from my neighborhood have their kids.  But they aren't.  I am young.  -er.  Younger.
Less old than the other moms.
Or else they just look rough for their ages.
Like they sleep in tanning beds (wholly possible) and forgo fresh produce and water sort of rough.
And that makes me feel sort of credulous and callow and I need another c-word synonym too.
I'm surprised how many moms from the older grades are well into their forties.  Some in their fifties.  And some of the dads are older than my dad.  It's weird.
Not all of them, of course.  But enough that it's worth writing about.  I guess the ones I don't see are probably younger.  Working jobs that don't allow for the flexibility that lets you jump in to the school for an hour to help out with the Scholastic book fair or to stuff Communication Envelopes that get sent home with every kid every Wednesday or monitor the lunchroom or help the littler kids into their ballet slippers or take their violins down from the shelves.

These are the people living in my neighborhood now.  Not necessarily the people who are from my neighborhood.  Times are certainly changing.
Which is probably really superty good for my property value.

I will be forty when Jake is in fifth grade. 
47 when he graduates high school.

But I'll tell people I'm fifty, because I will look great for fifty.