Maturity

S

SlayersDestiny

Destiny
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Please feel free to agree/disagree with me, I think everyone here on the BB loves a good debate.

Does maturity come with age?

IMHO, I do not think that maturity come with age or responsibility, it comes from how an individual reacts to situations. I also do not think that IQ has any bearing on a persons maturity level, it may deal with critical thinking but not in how they respond to criticism, stress or adverse situations.

What do you think creates maturity in an individual?
 
S
Summers Blood
Good Thread Topic Hun!
SpikedBuffy
SpikedBuffy
Your answer is my answe! :)
maturity, by definition comes with time and situations (to mature, to grow).
You can't grow without adversity or without fuel.
Maturity is a function of time/experience as mediated by the personality of the individual in question. Therefore the same amount of time (e.g. age) does not alone equal maturity, nor does the same situation experienced across individuals, and further neither does the same situation and same time have an equitable outcome on maturity because time and situation are experienced uniquely from person to person-strained through the personlity. And personality alone does not fully comprise an individuals maturity because personality (as evidenced by current research tends to be stable), something stable cannot mature because there is not growth in stability. However the way in which one's personality is manifested is a product of time and situation. Who you are, and therefore how you mature are balanced among at least those three variables. I may have missed a variable tho. My brain is still growing.
You asked what creates maturity, and that is what I answered...now if you wanted to know what the evidence of that maturation having taken place is, well that would be a different answer, but I will wait for that I suppose.
 
Maturity continues throughout our entire lives, we are constantly learning lessons as we go along, and a sign of true maturity is accepting that we will never be completely right, we just have to listen and learn. When you can judge things fairly that you weren't able to do once, you become aware of how you are growing up.
 
i dont think all maturity comes with age. i think maturity is your ability to handle a situtation and there have been plenty of times my 7 year old sisters had handled things with more maturity than my 19 year old brother.
 
Yeah I agree that a 30 or even 60 years old person can be a lot more immature than a 17 years old or younger. It's not just time.. it's a mix of everything... ordeals you went through.. lessons life taught you... how your parents raised you... etc
Of course the older you are the most likely it is that you went through more things than younger ppl and learnt more from life.. so it'd give credits to older ppl who have actually learnt to learn... lol... but that's not always the case... some ppl never learn...
 
IMO, maturity comes with responsibility, age, experience, decisions, adversity, and just about everything else in life...i thnik everything we go through and experience in life adds to our maturity as we age and grow and experience all these things...
 
I really don't have a clue what you guys are talking about.

If someone could accurately define the discussion and the subject itself, I'm sure I could rationalize an opposing theory.

What is this maturity that you speak of? When you say maturity do you mean self dependence?
 
BillieHunter said:
IMO, maturity comes with responsibility, age, experience, decisions, adversity, and just about everything else in life...i thnik everything we go through and experience in life adds to our maturity as we age and grow and experience all these things...
Click to expand...

yeah i will go with that :silly: :biggrin: :freak:
 
Fiver said:
If someone could accurately define the discussion and the subject itself, I'm sure I could rationalize an opposing theory.
Click to expand...

No doubt...

maturity n. 1. The state or quality of being mature; full development.

mature adj. 1. Relatively advanced physically, mentally, etc.; grown-up.

Does that help? Thank Mr. Collins for that...😉
 
F
Frenchy Faith
grown-up?? Arrrggh... I'm NOT mature then! hehehe
It really irritates me when older people tend to look down on the younger generation and instantly label them as 'immature'. But I guess I'm being just as bad by labelling older people as labelling younger people as immature. Hmmm.

I would have to agree that maturity does not come once you reach a certain age. I think that in general, older people are more mature than younger people, but definately not in all cases. Maturity seems to grow more with age solely because the older you are the more things you are likely to have lived through, you are more likely to have lost someone, or made more mistakes than younger people and through dealing with those situations is how we tend to get more mature.

But life is never simple enough to say Old = Mature or otherwise and I think it is more of a product of what you have been through in your life, what way you have been brought up, what morals and values you have, and things like that. Although I do think that nowadays kids try to be mature long before their time which is sad. 14 year olds want to be adult and mature enough for guys to find them attractive, they base themselves on firgures they see in the media and try to be mature too soon, and that's sad because you should make the most of being immature and childish while you can. Heck, I still do and I'm 20.
 
Maturity in my opinion has nothing to do with age and everything to do with situation.

In many situations i am very mature, i have a level head and i deal with things rationally, thats how i have been since i can remember....
Having said that, i still occasionally laugh at fart jokes, i have, only today, called someone a retard on this board and i still giggle when i see someone fall over.

I think everyone is both mature and immature, but some people grow up and find some things not so funny or react in a childish way.
 
Oh... this is a good topic! I think that maturity comes with experience of life. And I think you can gain life experience without necessarily living very long so therefore maturity doesn't come with age.

Although, people who have lived for longer have the potential for more life experience and therefore more maturity. It all depends on the kind of life they are presented with.

But feel free to disagree cos this is just my most humble opinion/theory. 🙂
 
Jenny
Jenny
Very well put hon!
I agree with most people, that maturity comes from what you have experienced and how you choose to deal with it and not necessarily from how old you are, but if you have lived longer it's likely that you have experienced more than people younger than you.. I also think that you can be really mature in one situation and not so much in another, I mean that I don't think maturity is something constant, some people or situations can make you behave really immature even if you are mature in other situations, and vice versa.
 
K
killerdwarf
Yup, that sounds right!
I have to agree with the non-constant theory too. There are times when I act like a complete child and other times when I'm the absolute model of maturity. It depends on the situation and the people that you are with.
 
J
Joamna
like when getting poked :P
There's nothing wrong with letting your 'inner child' out once in a while. 😉

Speaking as an older member, I agree with the majority here, age doesn't necessarily reflect maturity. I can think of quite a few people that I know that are 40yrs + and often have less maturity than my children! 'lol'

I think it really depends on the situations that we are placed in as we grow up, and sometimes even our personality types, I mean I react to the people around me, and my surroundings, so can be as childish as the next person or as mature as is needed. 😉

I was always being told that I was a mature teenager when I was 14yrs old, but I had been through quite alot of things by that age that had quite an adverse effect on me, things even an an adult would struggle to deal with, let alone a child, so I strongly believe that our experiences have an adverse effect on how we deal with situations and people later in life. Age definitely doesn't define how mature we are.

To be constantly 'mature' must be really hard work, and I would imagine somewhat boring, I would rather be accused of being immature for my age at times, and enjoy my life to the full, than to be all serious and mature about everything, all the time.

I say every so often, embrace your inner child, & have fun wth it! 😀
 
K
killerdwarf
So right you are, about so much...
Yup... edb hit it on the head there. I totally agree... and, funnily enough, I was told the exact same things when I was 14/15. I had spent the first few of my teenage years trying to fit in with the badly behaved kids. Then one day my guidance teacher told me that I was on the riight path to be working for minimum wage for the rest of my life and, if I didn't pull up my socks, I'd suffer for it. She asked me a very important question at that time... "Do you want to be like this forever?"

The truth was that my childhood had forced me to grow up way before my time and I wanted to be a child again. I realised then that I can still be a little child and grow up into a well-balanced young woman.

There's something my Aunt always said to me when we had chats about the world and what's wrong with it. She said "Never lose your Peter Pan!" I'm sticking by that moto... 🙂
 
F
Frenchy Faith
Hehehe... YAY for ya! It's good form! ;)
I agree with what elmo, edb, Joamna etc have said... I was so (um, "lillgammal", help me out here Swedes?).. Like, when I was a kid I was shy and geeky and smart and I'd rather talk to the teachers than to my fellow classmates etc. I think that made me think that I was mature, while in fact, I was just weird and antisocial 😉
When I was 10-16 I was always told (by adults around me) that I was mature for my age etc., I don't think that was entirely true though.
I'm probably way less mature now than I was when I was younger, but I'm also having more fun now. I never made a fool out of myself when I was a kid "“ I do now, all the time, and I take risks etc. etc. etc. I'm way less serious now than when I was younger, and I like it, a lot.
(And this sound really dorky, but I have Buffy to thank for my change of attitude 😉 )

(End of pointless rant.)
 
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