I’m going to try to leave some space here so the question in the spoiler box doesn’t show up on hover over.
So, how old were you when you realized:
That you are older than __% of the people born in the same year as you? In my case I’m older than around 75% of people born in 1977 since I was born the 10th of April. Approximately, of course since it’s unlikely that births were equally distributed over all 12 months.
I was about 26 when this fairly obvious thought finally crossed my mind. Anyone not think about it until you highlighted the box?
It had never crossed my mind until now. 23 years. I did however know that I was an elder among my grade level due to the split year nature of the school calendar.
In terms of actual percentages? Not the way my mind works. OTOH, since my birthday is 12/31, I’ve always been aware that I’m one of the very last people born in my birthyear to turn any particular age.
No idea. Given my October Birthday, combined with the September Cut Off Date for my school district, knowing that I was older than the vast majority of my classmates was much more important than knowing how many people born in the same year I was are older or younger than me.
Quite early on - when I was about 9 or 10. I realised that my birthday in late May was always going to make me one of the youngest children in my year at school since the cut-off was 30 June. And that the rest of the children born in my year were always going to be a year behind me.
Well, as with previous posters, I first noticed my age difference in school with a September 25th birthday and October 1 cutoff. I was always the youngest in my class. Ugh. Everyone got to drive before me, date before me, do everything before me.
Considering the OP, I guess I’m younger than 75% of my peers born in 1959
I realized fairly early on; I have a July birthday and my school had a mid-September cutoff, so I was always one of the youngest in my grade. It bothered me a lot when I was younger, but, for whatever reason, not as much in high school.
Me too. According to at least one chart (there’s a few different ones) “official” Baby Boomer years were 1946 to 1964. As I was born 12/31/64, I sometimes refer to myself as the world’s youngest Boomer.
I have a close friend whose birthday is early January 1964. He insists we’re the same age, and I have to remind him that he’s actually almost a full year older than I am.
Never thought about it that way, although in school I knew I was always in the middle of my grade. If birthdays were evenly distributed throughout the year, I’d be older than 2/3rds of the people born in 1982.
I had a similar problem, sort of. I was born in August, but my mum got me special Education Dept dispensation to start school alongside the 30 June cutoff kids. IOW, I was only 4 years old in prep class at Primary School, while the other kids were at least 5 and sometimes 6.
I realised VERY early thankyouverymuch. I just thank the genetic stars that I had a mouth on me.
Being born on Nov 13 in a non leap-year, I am older than 13.43% of those born in my year. I’m not sure if my school district had a cut-off, but if it did, it must have been past my b-day (and there was one girl in my class who was born later in November, so maybe the cut-off was December.) It was a little disappointing almost always being the youngest in my group of friends (we did have a few friends from a grade lower who hung out with us on occasion, but usually I was the youngest whenever we went somewhere.) On the plus side, I never had to be the one to drive anywhere until the second half of my junior year.
It kind of hit me after I met my wife and started hanging out with her and her friends. We were all born in the same year, but I was always the youngest with my December birthday.
Elementary school? I’ve always been tall, but being in the tail end of the age range for those at school made it so bad that one day the recess lady wouldn’t let me in through the grades 1-3 doors, saying I belonged with the 4-6s.
Now, it hardly matters. My friends and co-workers can range in age 20 years or more yet be a similar range the other way mentally, so why bother keeping track of mere months?
What a bizarre question. How does this have relevance to anything? It’s like saying “I never realized until I was 26 that my nose is bigger than 82% of other people.”
It seems rather self-conscious and petty to compare oneself to other people, especially in this way.
It never really mattered to me. Born in August, I started school in the third term, in September. But during my time at primary, I skipped a year and went up a level, so I finished slightly ahead of the game anyway.
I meet my once-schoolmates in adulthood now, and it doesn’t matter when which one was born in comparison with anyone else.
Dunno about realizing I was younger than most of the people born in my year, but I was the youngest person in every school class I was in up till I went to college. Thank goodness my parents did a successful end run around the ridiculous public school cutoff date by sending me to private school for first grade, that’s all I can say.
In moderate, northern hemisphere climates, most births happen in March, then September. Turn it 'round for the southern hemisphere. When the new hospital in my home town opened, they took this into account to dimension the neonatal unit: they looked up statistics for March, for the last 5 years, and for the area the hospital was supposed to cover. Then they were mighty surprised when yep, numbers increased in March… stayed the same in April… same in May… and didn’t go down until July. The reason? That’s how long the fiestas season lasts. In that area, people don’t all go on vacation at the same time, each town has one week of fiestas and many people arrange their vacations around those. Once they realized this little detail, they looked at the data again and saw that, yep, most births for each individual town happened 9 months after the local fiesta. Oooopsies, gee, wonder what is it people do in between watching the midnight fireworks and going to the dawn bullrun…
I’ve known I had many classmates younger than me for a long time… heck, I was always being put in charge of my cousins, any time the only one older than me wasn’t around! And I have two cousins born in my same year, but later months. So, since I have memory.
