“You’re too young.”
If you grew up in Ghana, chances are you have heard this sentence more times than you can count.
You are too young to have an opinion. Too young to question something. Too young to make certain decisions. Too young to tell an older person that they are wrong.
Then, somehow, one day you wake up and you are no longer “too young” — but you are still expected to listen to someone older because, well, they have lived longer.
Age carries a certain weight in Ghana. Sometimes it makes perfect sense. Other times, it can be difficult to understand where respect ends and simply being older begins.
We are raised to respect our elders, and there is something valuable about that.
Our parents teach us to greet older people properly. We are expected to show deference to our elders, to listen when they speak and to be mindful of how we address them. In many families, even the way you sit, speak or enter a room can be influenced by who is older than you.
It is part of our social fabric.
But sometimes, age becomes an argument all by itself.
You could make a perfectly reasonable point, only to have someone dismiss it with, “What do you know? You are still young.”
And that is where things get interesting.
Because being older does not automatically make someone right.
Experience matters, certainly. Someone who has lived through things you have not may have a perspective worth listening to. There are lessons that only time can teach.
But age and wisdom are not the same thing.
A person can be 25 and have good judgement. A person can be 60 and make terrible decisions. Someone can be young and know something an older person does not. Someone can also be old and still have plenty to learn.
Yet in Ghana, questioning an older person can sometimes be interpreted as disrespect.
You are not necessarily judged only on what you said. People may also be thinking about how you said it, who you said it to and, most importantly, how old you are.
The same statement can sound completely different depending on who says it.
If an older person says, “I don’t think this is a good idea,” they may be considered experienced.
If a younger person says exactly the same thing, they may be told to calm down and “learn from those ahead of you.”
It can be frustrating.
Especially when you are old enough to be responsible for your own life but somehow still young enough to be told that you do not understand anything.
And Ghanaian society has an interesting way of deciding when you are actually old enough.
At 18, you are legally an adult in many respects, but your family may still consider you a child.
At 25, someone might ask when you are getting married.
At 30, the questions become more serious.
“Are you married?”
“When are you having children?”
“Why are you still living at home?”
“What are you doing with your life?”
By 35, apparently you should have figured everything out.
And if you happen to be successful at a relatively young age, another problem can appear.
You may be considered too young to be taken seriously.
This is particularly interesting in professional spaces.
Imagine walking into a room where you are qualified, prepared and confident, but people are trying to figure out whether you are old enough to be there.
Sometimes the first question is not what you know.
It is how old you are.
There is an assumption that authority should come with grey hair.
And yet, some of the most capable people in the world are young.
We have become comfortable with young people being innovative, entrepreneurial and technologically skilled. We praise young founders, creatives and professionals when they succeed.
But when a young person becomes confident enough to challenge an established way of doing things, the reaction can suddenly change.
“Who does she think she is?”
“She is too young.”
“She should respect her elders.”
It is an interesting contradiction.
We want young people to succeed, but sometimes we only want them to succeed within limits that make older people comfortable.
And then there is the other side.
As you get older, you begin to realise that some of the things you once thought were annoying were actually attempts to protect you.
The constant advice.
The warnings.
The “when I was your age…”
The insistence that you should save money.
The reminder to greet people properly.
The advice not to trust everyone.
The older you become, the more you realise that experience does count for something.
Perhaps that is why the answer cannot simply be, “Age doesn’t matter.”
It does.
Age can bring perspective. It can bring experience, patience and a better understanding of consequences.
But perhaps what matters is what we do with that experience.
Being older should not mean that you are beyond questioning.
And being younger should not mean that you have nothing worth saying.
Maybe respect should work both ways.
A younger person can respect an elder without agreeing with everything they say.
An older person can correct a younger person without dismissing everything they say.
We can listen to our elders without assuming that every old idea is automatically a good one.
And we can listen to young people without assuming that youth means ignorance.
There is something else about age that we rarely talk about.
Sometimes, Ghanaian society does not just use age to determine whether you are mature.
It uses age to determine when you are supposed to reach certain milestones.
There is an invisible timetable.
By this age, you should have finished school.
By this age, you should have a job.
By this age, you should be married.
By this age, you should have children.
By this age, you should own a house.
By this age, you should have “settled.”
But life does not work according to a Ghanaian timetable.
People graduate at different ages.
People change careers.
People get married late.
Some never marry.
Some have children early. Others do not have children at all.
Some people become financially stable at 24. Others find their footing at 40.
There is no universal age for having life figured out.
Yet the pressure can be intense because everybody seems to have an opinion about where you should be.
Perhaps this is why the phrase “You’re too young” eventually becomes something else.
It becomes:
“You are getting old.”
Suddenly, you have gone from being too young to do something to being too old to start something new.
Too young to have an opinion.
Too old to change careers.
Too young to understand life.
Too old to be making certain mistakes.
Too young to settle down.
Too old to still be figuring things out.
Sometimes it feels as though there is a very narrow window in which Ghanaian society considers you to be the “right” age for anything.
Maybe we need to loosen our grip on that timeline.
Young people deserve room to make decisions, make mistakes and develop their own judgement.
Older people deserve respect, but respect should not require unquestioning obedience.
And perhaps the best thing we can do is allow people to be exactly where they are without constantly asking whether they are ahead or behind.
Because age tells us how long someone has been alive.
It does not tell us everything about what they know.
And maybe that is the part worth remembering the next time someone says:
“You’re too young.”