Mature For Your Age: Immitating Maturity
This isn't going to be very long. My argument is based on common sense and the perspectives I have based on my age, which doesn't hold up in court.
But I am sad. I am sad to watch so many children follow a path I walked, when it was harder to be put on and easier to get off. And now . . . now they all follow it. It's a damned shame.
When I was young, I was told, "You are so mature for your age!" It's a compliment we adults give to children who are clever enough to get good grades, or who start washing the dishes without being asked. It's the reward we offer in exchange for taking out the trash, or keeping a clean room.
it's the sorrowful consolation prize we offer to children of neglect, or abuse, who had to grow up too fast, or take on responsibilities beyond their years.
"You are so mature for your age!" we proclaim, when they don't run away giggling with their friends on graduation day. "So mature for your age!" when they say please and thank you but no parents are around to hear them say it.
"So mature!" they hear, but "for your age" that part is kind of an insult, as if we expected so much less of them, so they don't hear that part, because, honestly, we did. Your children clean up after themselves? Your children excuse themselves from the table and go to the restroom instead of allowing bodily humor at the table? Your children still have money in their bank accounts? You are so lucky. Your children are so mature for their ages. Any other kid might live in a hell hole, coming out only to fart or belch at the table, and then run off to blow their allowance on energy drinks and glitter based make up.
Maturity. We throw it around, but it has meaning. It is a real thing. It's not just a gold star at the top of the paper at the end of the day. It's not a reward for good behavior. In fact, for so many of us, maturity comes at the price of bad behavior. We screwed up, we had to grow up faster, we had more responsibilities than we realized, and when they overwhelmed us, we had to step up to the plate, or take a stand, or else be washed away.
Maturity is a reward. It's a gift, a blessing, bestowed on us, like a diploma. We finally figured out why we can't leave our toys on the front lawn when we are done playing with them--they disappear, they get stolen. They get rained on and rusty, or the minivan backs over them, and now we don't have them anymore. As we grow older, it's less toys on the lawn and more true friendship, or credit cards, or birth control. It's less convincing Mommy you are responsible enough, and more proving you are by having to buy and maintain it on your own. Maturity . . . you don't know when you don't have it, but by the time you do, it's easier to look back and see that you didn't.
You never stop seeking maturity. There will never come a point where things are so together, so spot on handled that you stop worrying all together. Because the price of maturity is responsibility. The more responsibility you show, the more mature people think you are, and the more they will make your responsible for.
It's responsibility we should be rewarding our children for. It's responsibility we should be congratulating them on.
They aren't mature. Not even for their age. I'm not. I'm 32 years old, and I am not mature, not even for my age. And I certainly wasn't when it was the compliment I sought, at 10 or 13 or 16 or 19. I wasn't mature for my age just because I knew to put my book bag in my bedroom, or hang up my clothes. Those are my things--it was my responsibility to take care of them. I learned the hard way to do that--I had a dog, and he liked to pee on things. Go to school with a backpack that smells like urine and you learn a lesson in humility. I wasn't mature just because I put dinner on the table for all of us kids, or stayed up late to get my homework done. I had a working Mom, and school work to do. Just becasue you didn't see me complain about it, doesn't mean I intrinsically knew the value of my hard work. I needed a parent, or a teacher, to point out the bonds that should have been growing between my sisters and myself, or the doorways I could be opening with good grades if I wanted a better life in the future. Without them, I grew up just a little faster, failed just a little more often, was just a little more irresponsible, because I didn't have the maturity to handle the amount of responsibility I was handed. I paid the utility bills with summer jobs and babysitting. Was I mature enough to keep my family together, mature enough to want to be a part of a functional family at all, with hope and love and joy? Or was I a miserably over taxed teenager, who's demands out weighed her understanding, and worked because she had to?
Maturity isn't about how old you are. That's the aging process. And maturity isn't how much you are responsible for either. That's your work load. It's not about how smart you are. That's intelligence, and information and knowledge. It's the lessons you learn about what you are doing, from what you have done, and what you need to do still. Maturity is about being cognizant of all the cause and effects of all of your actions and distractions.
Our children aren't mature. They are maturing. There is a difference.
It's the difference between buying a laptop now using a credit card you are pretty sure you can pay off, and saving up to buy a laptop when you know a sale is coming up, and only buying it if it's compatible with the programs you will have to use for school--
The difference is between having a license and a credit card and being allowed to buy a car. . . and riding the bus until you have enough money to put a down payment on a car, and get quotes on insurance and always check both ways between pulling out, and worrying about going over the speed limit, or if the gas mileage is low enough, and if it puts out too much exhaust--
The difference, is being mature enough to give birth to a child and raise it and feed and clothe it and take care of it, and making the sacrifices it takes to make sure that child has a better life than you did . . . or to waiting until you are financially safe enough, emotionally prepared enough, and knowing that you have the functional support of family or friends that you can and will turn to--
Those examples still seem so incomplete . . . maturity isn't being smart enough to follow the smart path to doing the right thing to get what you want. Maturity is knowing that you have wants, and you have needs, that there are good paths and bad paths, that you will make mistakes along the way and that you can learn from other people's mistakes as well as your own . . . and still taking the time to see that there is still a bigger picture than all that, and you are going to be responsible even for what you don't prepare for.
Even with all that advice, at 10 or 15 or 20 or 25, you are still going to find yourself imitating maturity. Maybe I am still trying to imitate maturity at 32, and I will find out that I was goofing off irresponsibly well into the future. Maybe we never grow to be fully mature. Maybe we just get mature for our age and by the time we are old enough to see more of the big picture, we are too frail or too resentful of all the time we wasted, or too tired to care anymore.
It seems to me, that it's time to stop misleading our children. When we say "You are so mature for your age!" and they don't want to hear "for your age" what they do hear is permission. Permission to do the things they want to be old enough to do, in the great race towards freedom. If they are mature for their age, then they should be allowed, right? Allowed to have a cell phone. Allowed to drive the car. Allowed to decide to drink, or do drugs, or smoke cigarettes, or have sex. It's permission. Those freedoms are the rewards for
living to a reasonable age, and we do dole them out to children as they age towards adulthood.
So if your child is mature enough to do the dishes and wash the car for you, and get their homework done, then they must be mature enough to just try drugs, or have sex with that boy that she just knows is the love of her life, and she trusts him because he's so mature, so they don't need condoms. Because responibility comes with maturity, right? Not the other way around?
He's so mature, he's so mature for his age, he can certainly have a beer. It's not like alcohol will react differently in the body of a child who's not even done growing, who's metabolism is completely different from an adult's, who's alcohol tolerance is completely untested, and who's common sense and ability to reason has so far lead him down a path that allows for lighting his farts on fire, or skateboarding off what seemed like a really really small shed. . . .
Your children are not mature. No matter how competent and responsible they see compared to other children of the same age, you wouldn't want them to choose between something they really want, and something they should do every single time. Because they are children. Because they are young. Because they are not mature. They may be very good at imitating maturity--but that's intelligence. Reward them for their intelligence--tell them you are proud of their responsible actions. Be there, to see them make choices, and to ask them if they made a choice at all, based on critical thinking and cognitive reasoning skills--or if they were following the herd, or randomizing, or seeking a goal that isn't quite the achievement you would hope them to strive for.
Because when you are there for a child, when you can show them the bigger picture, when you can help them through the ever increasing responsibilities that come with age--you yourself may move forward toward maturity. Maybe you will begin to see more of the big picture yourself--make less random or short term choices, use more critical thinking and reach for ultimate enlightenment as well.
Maybe, instead of complimenting children on their ability to imitate maturity, we can set a better example of what maturity looks like, and set a goal for ourselves to one day reach maturity as well.
But I am sad. I am sad to watch so many children follow a path I walked, when it was harder to be put on and easier to get off. And now . . . now they all follow it. It's a damned shame.
When I was young, I was told, "You are so mature for your age!" It's a compliment we adults give to children who are clever enough to get good grades, or who start washing the dishes without being asked. It's the reward we offer in exchange for taking out the trash, or keeping a clean room.
it's the sorrowful consolation prize we offer to children of neglect, or abuse, who had to grow up too fast, or take on responsibilities beyond their years.
"You are so mature for your age!" we proclaim, when they don't run away giggling with their friends on graduation day. "So mature for your age!" when they say please and thank you but no parents are around to hear them say it.
"So mature!" they hear, but "for your age" that part is kind of an insult, as if we expected so much less of them, so they don't hear that part, because, honestly, we did. Your children clean up after themselves? Your children excuse themselves from the table and go to the restroom instead of allowing bodily humor at the table? Your children still have money in their bank accounts? You are so lucky. Your children are so mature for their ages. Any other kid might live in a hell hole, coming out only to fart or belch at the table, and then run off to blow their allowance on energy drinks and glitter based make up.
Maturity. We throw it around, but it has meaning. It is a real thing. It's not just a gold star at the top of the paper at the end of the day. It's not a reward for good behavior. In fact, for so many of us, maturity comes at the price of bad behavior. We screwed up, we had to grow up faster, we had more responsibilities than we realized, and when they overwhelmed us, we had to step up to the plate, or take a stand, or else be washed away.
Maturity is a reward. It's a gift, a blessing, bestowed on us, like a diploma. We finally figured out why we can't leave our toys on the front lawn when we are done playing with them--they disappear, they get stolen. They get rained on and rusty, or the minivan backs over them, and now we don't have them anymore. As we grow older, it's less toys on the lawn and more true friendship, or credit cards, or birth control. It's less convincing Mommy you are responsible enough, and more proving you are by having to buy and maintain it on your own. Maturity . . . you don't know when you don't have it, but by the time you do, it's easier to look back and see that you didn't.
You never stop seeking maturity. There will never come a point where things are so together, so spot on handled that you stop worrying all together. Because the price of maturity is responsibility. The more responsibility you show, the more mature people think you are, and the more they will make your responsible for.
It's responsibility we should be rewarding our children for. It's responsibility we should be congratulating them on.
They aren't mature. Not even for their age. I'm not. I'm 32 years old, and I am not mature, not even for my age. And I certainly wasn't when it was the compliment I sought, at 10 or 13 or 16 or 19. I wasn't mature for my age just because I knew to put my book bag in my bedroom, or hang up my clothes. Those are my things--it was my responsibility to take care of them. I learned the hard way to do that--I had a dog, and he liked to pee on things. Go to school with a backpack that smells like urine and you learn a lesson in humility. I wasn't mature just because I put dinner on the table for all of us kids, or stayed up late to get my homework done. I had a working Mom, and school work to do. Just becasue you didn't see me complain about it, doesn't mean I intrinsically knew the value of my hard work. I needed a parent, or a teacher, to point out the bonds that should have been growing between my sisters and myself, or the doorways I could be opening with good grades if I wanted a better life in the future. Without them, I grew up just a little faster, failed just a little more often, was just a little more irresponsible, because I didn't have the maturity to handle the amount of responsibility I was handed. I paid the utility bills with summer jobs and babysitting. Was I mature enough to keep my family together, mature enough to want to be a part of a functional family at all, with hope and love and joy? Or was I a miserably over taxed teenager, who's demands out weighed her understanding, and worked because she had to?
Maturity isn't about how old you are. That's the aging process. And maturity isn't how much you are responsible for either. That's your work load. It's not about how smart you are. That's intelligence, and information and knowledge. It's the lessons you learn about what you are doing, from what you have done, and what you need to do still. Maturity is about being cognizant of all the cause and effects of all of your actions and distractions.
Our children aren't mature. They are maturing. There is a difference.
It's the difference between buying a laptop now using a credit card you are pretty sure you can pay off, and saving up to buy a laptop when you know a sale is coming up, and only buying it if it's compatible with the programs you will have to use for school--
The difference is between having a license and a credit card and being allowed to buy a car. . . and riding the bus until you have enough money to put a down payment on a car, and get quotes on insurance and always check both ways between pulling out, and worrying about going over the speed limit, or if the gas mileage is low enough, and if it puts out too much exhaust--
The difference, is being mature enough to give birth to a child and raise it and feed and clothe it and take care of it, and making the sacrifices it takes to make sure that child has a better life than you did . . . or to waiting until you are financially safe enough, emotionally prepared enough, and knowing that you have the functional support of family or friends that you can and will turn to--
Those examples still seem so incomplete . . . maturity isn't being smart enough to follow the smart path to doing the right thing to get what you want. Maturity is knowing that you have wants, and you have needs, that there are good paths and bad paths, that you will make mistakes along the way and that you can learn from other people's mistakes as well as your own . . . and still taking the time to see that there is still a bigger picture than all that, and you are going to be responsible even for what you don't prepare for.
Even with all that advice, at 10 or 15 or 20 or 25, you are still going to find yourself imitating maturity. Maybe I am still trying to imitate maturity at 32, and I will find out that I was goofing off irresponsibly well into the future. Maybe we never grow to be fully mature. Maybe we just get mature for our age and by the time we are old enough to see more of the big picture, we are too frail or too resentful of all the time we wasted, or too tired to care anymore.
It seems to me, that it's time to stop misleading our children. When we say "You are so mature for your age!" and they don't want to hear "for your age" what they do hear is permission. Permission to do the things they want to be old enough to do, in the great race towards freedom. If they are mature for their age, then they should be allowed, right? Allowed to have a cell phone. Allowed to drive the car. Allowed to decide to drink, or do drugs, or smoke cigarettes, or have sex. It's permission. Those freedoms are the rewards for
living to a reasonable age, and we do dole them out to children as they age towards adulthood.
So if your child is mature enough to do the dishes and wash the car for you, and get their homework done, then they must be mature enough to just try drugs, or have sex with that boy that she just knows is the love of her life, and she trusts him because he's so mature, so they don't need condoms. Because responibility comes with maturity, right? Not the other way around?
He's so mature, he's so mature for his age, he can certainly have a beer. It's not like alcohol will react differently in the body of a child who's not even done growing, who's metabolism is completely different from an adult's, who's alcohol tolerance is completely untested, and who's common sense and ability to reason has so far lead him down a path that allows for lighting his farts on fire, or skateboarding off what seemed like a really really small shed. . . .
Your children are not mature. No matter how competent and responsible they see compared to other children of the same age, you wouldn't want them to choose between something they really want, and something they should do every single time. Because they are children. Because they are young. Because they are not mature. They may be very good at imitating maturity--but that's intelligence. Reward them for their intelligence--tell them you are proud of their responsible actions. Be there, to see them make choices, and to ask them if they made a choice at all, based on critical thinking and cognitive reasoning skills--or if they were following the herd, or randomizing, or seeking a goal that isn't quite the achievement you would hope them to strive for.
Because when you are there for a child, when you can show them the bigger picture, when you can help them through the ever increasing responsibilities that come with age--you yourself may move forward toward maturity. Maybe you will begin to see more of the big picture yourself--make less random or short term choices, use more critical thinking and reach for ultimate enlightenment as well.
Maybe, instead of complimenting children on their ability to imitate maturity, we can set a better example of what maturity looks like, and set a goal for ourselves to one day reach maturity as well.