Well, when I was 5 years from 30, I wasn’t too concerned, either. Now that I’m on the wrong side of 30, I feel a little different about getting older. You may find that your attitudes change over time.
Many cultures do, yes. But I think we tend to value raw brainpower over accumulated knowledge. There are many fields–and they’re often high status, lucrative fields–in which knowledge becomes obsolete very quickly, but constant brainpower is a necessity. Being bright, creative, and not defined by any one intellectual approach to problems is often seen as characteristic of young people and highly atypical for older ones.
I don’t know much about where you work, but I can tell you that younger grad students are often seen as smarter and as having more potential than older ones. That may be more true of the sciences than it is of the humanities. I haven’t gone out of my way to hide my age, but I’m not too keen on having to point out that I’m 31, either. I think I’d lose some respect from other grad students, profs whose opinion of me could really influence my career, and at least some of my students if I were up front about my age. (One of my students last year asked me how old I was. Stupidly, I was honest with him. His response was, “What? You’re 30 and you’re working on a master’s?!” The rest of the quarter was all downhill from there.)
My mother knows how old I am, of course. But we don’t discuss it, mainly because she thinks I’m something of a failure. At the age of 31, I’m still in school (haven’t even finished my master’s yet) I’ve never made over US$17,000 in a single year, and I have neither husband nor children. If I were 25, say, and in the same position, that would be OK to her. But I’m 6 years older than that, so it’s not–at least, not as far as she’s concerned. I’ve learned never to bring up my birthday or my age to her or my other relatives (except my sisters–one of whom, 9 years younger than me, is earning more than I ever have or probably ever will. Now that she’s earning money, I’d bet that she’s going to start thinking of me as kind of a loser, too.)
I suppose that, if your level of achievement is seen as appropriate to your age, then getting older won’t cause a lot of angst for you. If your level of achievement is pretty far below what was expected, you’ll have some problems with getting older. Even if you don’t have any self-esteem issues because of it, you’ll probably get some unpleasant remarks and judgements from other people. If that’s the case for you, you’ll probably want to keep your true age to yourself and look as young as possible.
