Why is everyone afraid of 30?

I can't wait to be 30.  My twenties have by far been the most challenging years of my life.  All my friends around my age act like they are diagnosed with some terrible disease when they turn thirty, so I guess I just don't understand.  My neice through marriage is two years younger than me, and when she turned 25 she thought she was getting old.  I don't understand it, and it makes me really uncomfortable when people are so obsessed with youth.  I guess they forgot when they "grew up" (or thought they did) that being young sucked.  You couldn't do anything without asking your mom, and junior high is the most emotionally unbearable years to 99.9% of the population.  High school might have been better, but in my experience that's when my mom tightened the reigns even more.  For good reason - in an effort to feel more grown up, actions with dire consequences suddenly seem appealing to experiment with at that age.  Unplanned pregnancies, alcohol poisoning, and drug abuse is common with young people.  Why?  Because scientifically, their brains are literally not developed to consider the long term consequences of their actions.

And yet, people for some strange reason still like the idea of being young.  Or at least looking young, as if that is somehow a guarantee to preserve one's worth. 

Also, I don't think the obsession with being young is childlike and cute, it's childish and creepy.  Every time someone I know mentions to me how they dress up like a school girl for their husband, and actually giggle about how fun it is, it makes my skin crawl.  Ditto that for every other "service" they do for their man that is blurrs the age boundary.  But what do I know, I'm just a geek and they are "cool" for servicing men in forbidden, sexually charged ways.

I have considered the possibility that I am unappreciative of the time I have.  After all, it's very likely I will look back twenty years from now and consider myself an ungrateful curmudgeon that wasted her twenties on work, responsibilities, and self development.  Then again, it's very possible that I'll thank myself later.  I would have never gotten to where I am today if I had been lazy about enriching my knowledge and experience.  Maybe that's why I'm not afraid of getting older and other people are - there's a huge difference in focusing on bettering oneself and wasting a whole decade on immature partying and irresponsible drama.  The idea of growing up and being responsible is so foreign to some people that they fear it because it's still the unknown to them - even if they are of legal age.  That makes me sad, actually.