How to Get Rid of a Baby Face Men

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Yes, I Look Young. Stop Reminding Me.

Having a baby face might pay off when I'm older, but in your twenties it's hard.

Dec. 18, 2018

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I just shaved.

An unremarkable event in the life of a 25-year-old, but it means something more for me.

It makes me look — and feel — even younger.

The questions, "Where do you go to school?" or "You're twenty-five?" are bound to cloud the air around me more frequently.

People tell me I have what a 2009 study in the journal "Ethology" characterized as an appearance with "physical features such as the large head, high and protruding forehead, large eyes, chubby cheeks, small nose and mouth."

A baby face.

There's no question I look young. In my 6th-grade picture, lining the wall of my parents' house, I look like I'm 8. My 5th-grade students consistently tell me I look like I'm 18. During my senior year of college, when I was 21, a carnival employee at a state fair guessed I was 16. (I won a stuffed cow for his wrong answer.)

I know what a typical 25-year-old male looks like, and my bathroom mirror suggests that I look markedly different from him. I even wear it as a badge of pride: Looking "younger than my age" has become both a recurring joke among my family and friends, and a significant part of my identity.

What gets old, though, are the constant reminders, and the subtext they entail.

There is, I learned upon writing this article, an army of other baby facers who feel this pain. Soon after he turned 21, Joe DiRienzo—a 26-year-old who, a few months ago, had a Lyft driver guess he was in high school — went to a Mets game and ordered a beer. He presented his driver's license, but the vendor refused to serve him: Even after quizzing him on his date of birth, ZIP code and house number, she thought it was fake. Mr. DiRienzo, like most would, felt insulted. He went to a different vendor and got his beer.

There's a fine line, Mr. DiRienzo and I agreed, between kidding among friends and feeling disrespected by a complete stranger. When I was an intern for a Boston newspaper, for example, a professional soccer player I was preparing to interview looked at me and commented that high school must have let out early that day.

Joey Hodges knows what it's like. Ms. Hodges, a 32-year-old writer, has been married for eight years. But because she looks young, people have a peculiar reaction when they find out she's been married for that long.

"People look terrified," Ms. Hodges said, viewing her, as she described, like a "child bride."

Kevin Phinney, 26, meanwhile, bore the baby-faced burden in another arena: dating apps. A girl he matched with asked if the pictures on his profile were taken recently, because, as she delicately put it, "You look like a child." Mr. Phinney changed up his pictures soon after.

All of these scenarios might seem benign, but experienced repeatedly over several years, they can affect a person's self-perception. If something is consistently shoved in your (baby) face through different corners of society, no matter what it is, you start to believe it.

When Ana Travis, a 31-year-old high school teacher, started her career, some of her students' parents thought she was 18 — no matter that she wore makeup and purposefully dressed to look older. During her first couple of years at her high school, even staff members would ask "Where's your pass?" as she walked the hallways.

"When I get a little bit older," Ms. Travis said of her young appearance, "I'll probably appreciate it more."

Dave Lohse wholeheartedly agrees. He thinks us baby facers should celebrate. Here's the catch, though: Mr. Lohse is 63 and often guessed to be in his 50s. Looking young is, as he put it, "a wonderful thing." He is living proof of the remark young-looking people everywhere hear daily: "You'll love it when you're older."

So we're left with an important question: What are supposed to do now? What are we supposed to do when a co-worker mistakes us for an intern or shames us for wearing a tie into the office to appear older? When a client asks where our boss is? When our IDs are scrutinized and ages debated?

What are we supposed to do until it pays off in 20 years?

My only answer: Don't shave your beard.

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Robbie Harms is a contributor to The Edit. He studied journalism and economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and later graduated from the University of Florida with a master's in education. He now works as a fifth grade teacher.

How to Get Rid of a Baby Face Men

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/smarter-living/the-edit-baby-face.html

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