My mom was 5 years older than my dad. She was so ashamed of it that she told all her in-laws that her birthday was the same year as his, and therefore she was 6 months older. We celebrated all her milestone birthdays 5 years early with them because she was raised to believe her value was tied to her age.

To this day, her sisters will not tell me their age and I have no clue how old my aunts are. When a culture tells you that getting older makes you irrelevant, it breeds odd behaviour like that.