Why would it be difficult to date an item that was only 12 years old using carbon dating?

Because it is simply to young to use carbon dating, carbon dating is only used for things thousands to millions of years old.

Some people can get confused with carbon dating. Most people think it is used to show the age of a fossil or a rock. The rocks and fossils are called "inorganic matter" it is called that because it is not a living thing if it was a living thing then it would be called "organic matter". Carbon dating is usually only useful for organic matter that is less than 3-5,000 years old. I'm not sure if this helped but I hope you get the answer.

Don’t know. don’t care.look it up on google

Seems cool i guess ttyl