Not if you have the great good fortune to fit the general qualifications of “bear”, though. Daddy begins at 40…
I own this tee shirt. (For the click-phobic, it reads "So far, this is the oldest I’ve ever been.)
Anyway, I often complain about being old (I’m in my early 30s) mainly to amuse myself, and have been doing this for at least a decade. My mom finds it irritating, but when I talk to young people (which I try to avoid), I might as well be in earnest since they think you may as well drop dead at 25.
It’s these expressions I never give
That keep me searching for a heart of gold
And I’m getting old.
Neil Young was 25 when he recorded “Heart of Gold.”
I’ll be 60 next spring, and I’m starting to feel the distant rumbles of age. I can still do pretty much what I always did, except for climbing trees and swimming decent distances, but there’s a little extra creak in the knees, my legs get a little stiff when I’m sitting down too long, and I need to use a backscratcher to scratch my back, because I can’t reach all of my back anymore.
But I’ll let you know when I feel old. Hasn’t happened yet. 
Ill see when I get there. Maybe it’s mostly the 30s that are bad. You’re not young anymore and not old enough to fit the daddy category.
It’s also that when you hit around 30 you start to look around and realize that somebody accidentally let preteens be waiters and teenagers be med students. And you supervise people who are getting married at 24 and you think that’s incredibly stupid.
And then you think about the fact that those people who had kids in their early 20’s are out and free at 40, and at 33 if I got pregnant this instant I’d have a first grader then. And a kid learning to drive at 50.
I turned 30 this year. When you’re in your 20s or younger you are young, now I’m objectively not young so I choose to call myself old.
That being said I’m in some of the best shape I’ve ever been in and when I get married in a couple of months there is a good chance that I’ll be at my physical peak so I don’t feel old in a physical sense. But I go to bed and wake up early and even compared to the other people I’m getting my MBA with when they went out for beers after class last night I just shook my head and went to bed so I’m definitely acting old.
Of course I’ve been unreasonably happy for the last 6 years of so as I’ve entered that sweet spot where I still have tons of freedom but I’m also making tons of money so I can pretty much do what I want and I figure that’ll continue until I get convinced to give it up for children in the next couple of years. Then I’ll really be old.
That makes me chuckle, because I’ll turn 60 while my kid’s in first grade, and I’m hoping for self-driving cars to progress quickly, because I’d be 69 while he’s learning to drive.
When you were first born you were the youngest person on the planet.
It seems life becomes more mundane and the opportunities that you once had when you were younger are gone now. In high school, no one was married. So if they weren’t already dating someone, you might have a chance.
Grades, sports and relationships. When your young that is the time to shine in these areas. These early experiences can set the tone for the rest of your life. The opportunities to succeed in these areas are fewer and far between the older you get.
I’m 27 and starting to feel a bit older. It’s mostly a mental thing as physically I don’t think I’ve changed a bit. I feel like I should be farther along with my life. There’s so many things that have taken too long for me to figure out. It’s frustrating when you were young because you don’t have the experience to handle life’s challenges. This often leads to regret which can be very painful. It can be like a cycle and if you don’t get a handle on it, your whole life will pass you by and you will feel old. As they say, two of the most important virtues in life are youth and experience, but unfortunately they go in opposite directions.
Another chuckle from me. I didn’t start having kids until I was 30, and I quit when I was 41. Nobody expects the middle-age baby! :eek:
Actually I’d rather have kids later. I certainly didn’t want to be saddled with them in my 20s, no matter how footloose and fancy free I’d be right now. Well, potentially could have been right now. 
Hey, when I was born my mom was 38 and my dad was 49, but I don’t know where the hell they got the energy! I was a surprise.
For me, I think a big part of it is that while 30-something isn’t really old in the sense of being decrepit or anything, it’s not “young” in a lot of people’s view.
Pop music is mostly aimed at teens and early 20 somethings, so now there is a large chunk of pop culture that I don’t relate much to anymore.
My husband loves hockey so we have gone to some games. It seems weird to me when I realize that most if not all the players are younger than we are now. Not that my husband or I were ever realistic prospects to be a pro sports player, but it seems weird to realize that you’ve probably already peaked physically.
As a doctor, I have sometimes been depressed to realize that there are some signs of physical and mental decline that begin as early as the 30s - though so subtle that they aren’t going to have any real practical effect, it still seems kind of sad to me.
I found my first few gray hairs when I was about 25. I know other people who were already mostly gray and needed to dye their hair by 30, so I can’t whine much about my few gray hairs, but it certainly did make me feel older than I used to feel.
A while ago, my husband and I volunteered for a park cleanup where a lot of the other volunteers were college kids. They really did seem like KIDS to me, and I think they would not have perceived me as being their peer anymore. That was the first time I had realized that there is a real difference now between myself and an early 20s kid.
I don’t regret getting married younger. I probably just would have ended up marrying some loser idiot dirtbag, in retrospect. My judgement has certainly improved with age and I think I chose a better man now for marriage than I would have at 20.
I don’t feel old enough to have a child even now, honestly, though I am now one of those "grown up"s who has a husband and mortgage. I suspect that I probably never will actually feel like “OK, I am ready to have a kid.” because I realize how huge of a commitment it is.
However, I am very aware that since I do want a child, I need to plan to do it sooner rather than later, because the years of fertility are going by awfully fast - faster than I ever expected they would. I definitely can see how some women end up surprised to discover they are infertile because they wanted a kid “someday” and just kept putting it off until they suddenly realized “whoa, I’m 40 already?”