Feeling Different

Growing up, I have always been one of the youngest in my class, because my mom decided to send me to Miss M’s preschool when I was three about to be four because my birthday was right before the cut off. The choice was made because it was either I was the youngest in the class or the oldest. My mom was one of the younger students in her class so she graduated young as well and she was not very open about waiting another year for me to be four, almost 5, to send me to school.

Starting off school as one of the youngest was harder on my end because I had to learn to catch up with everyone else. I had some classmates who were 5 before I even turned 4, so our minds were at different stages. I had a hard time learning to read, I had a hard time with math and my parents had to help me a lot with my school work in their free time because I was not learning as fast as the other students were. I remember my mom telling me about how she had to make the decision to have me stay back due to how slowly I was learning or to keep me where I was. Due to my learning issues, I was put in special help classes where I had one on one teachers–like Ms. G,  who would help me learn faster. To me, it was very difficult because all my friends understood things when I did not so they could move ahead in class while I had to stay and get extra help. My teachers would spend their time slowly teaching the skill in a way I learned the best, and then would have me practice. After practice time we would play fun games, like “Go Fish.” This was a way to take a break so I would not feel frustrated by learning too much at one time. She made it fun by adding prizes if I could get more matches than her. After a while, I was able to catch up, thanks to the extra help I got along the way and ended up in higher classes than some other students who are much older than me. Since then, school has not been an issue for me and has actually started to become one of my strong suits.

I have had other situations that made me remember my age difference, like when I was a sophomore in Driver’s Ed and most of my friends were already driving or going for their licenses and when I finally got mine, most of my friends had already gone through their 9 months.

I also feel different due to my age as a senior. Many of my classmates are 18 or about to be 18. Unfortunately for me, I just turned 17. Most of them are able to start doing things I cannot, like buy scratch tickets or work in certain places where the age requirement is 18 and older. Same with going places, due to their age they can spend the summer after graduation going to places where there is a set age limit. Although, if they get pulled over they will be charged as an adult, and I will not, and they will be graduating college at 22 and 23, at least I will graduate college young. So there are perks to being the younger one but sometimes it’s hard when all your friends are older.

Featured Image: “Puppy Love” by pietroizzo is marked with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.