Above the age of majority, age matters less than most people imagines it does. Proclivities, personality and intelligence matter far more. But because we assign age such high value against all evidence, it thus matters far more than it otherwise would. We create the meaning by thinking it has meaning in a self-reinforcing loop.

I’ve met 20-year-olds with the maturity and wisdom of those forty years their elder. And I’ve met people like my mom who acted like a six-year-old her entire life.

Things that are easy to quantify we’ll assign much higher importance to than they otherwise would have, and ignore all else. (And it doesn’t help that very many older women generally absolutely despise younger ones and will treat them like trash at every opportunity; but that is a whole ‘nother topic.)