DOES AGE DETERMINE MATURITY?

What age really determines your maturity? Is it when you finally turn double-digit 10, when you
finally become a teenager at 13 or legal adult at 18? Maturity is a gradual process that happens
when you react to certain situations. Age is just a number that shows that a new year has been
added to your life. You cannot tell if a person has grown mentally wth just their age. Whether
they can be a leader or problem-solver or how they interact with others, just because someone
is 26 and has 2 children does not mean they are more mature than a 17-year-old who has gone
through the same childbirth experience. Does maturity only occur when you buy your first car
or house, or is it in fact, how you react to specific experiences? Let us find out.

“Age is just a number; maturity is a choice”- Harry Styles. Most people say maturity is
not just about how big or tall you may be or how many cars or children you may have, it is how
you react to life’s problems. Just because someone is 45, does not mean they know how to
drive a car like a 16-year-old in the USA or can-do basic math like a high school student at 13, In
2009, about fifty percent of women in Ghana in their 40’s were unable to drive. This shows that
maturity comes with experience and just because a person is older, does not mean they can do
the same things as a person who is younger.

“Maturity comes with experience not age” - Ziad Abdelnour. Last year, a boy called
James Thompson, born in Scotland, was found living in a small house at 16. They interviewed
him and found out that he had been paying his own bills and buying his own food ever since his
parents passed away. This clearly depicts how losing a parent might affect your maturity, as you
would not have received the same parental treatment and privilege as others would have. This
would make them more ready and mature for the world as they have learned to fend for
themselves and grow mentally on their own. People who are eighteen and were constantly
spoon-fed when they were younger, tend to be less mature than 13- or 16-year-old who grew
up with no mother or father figure.

“Maturity doesn't mean you stop fighting, you just change the things you fight for.”- Carlos
Wallace. If you have ever stayed with your grandparents for a while, you might happen to
experience a situation where they constantly ask for help regarding computers. Most of the
time, you may think, “This is so easy, I learnt this in class today.,” “I thought older people knew
more than us.” When you wonder this, ask yourself, “Did they have a good education or the
same privileges when they were my age?” And most of the time they did not! Education also
affects your maturity because school teaches you certain things that your parents will not
always tell you. Such as the Industrial Revolution in history or transportation in plants for
science.

“Aging is divine, and maturity is a blessing.” Maturity also depends on the people you
surround yourself with. Surrounding yourself with immature people can cause you to start
acting immature as well. In 2002, actor Will Smith’s son, Jaden Smith who is 24 was on a
podcast and mentioned how he would rather listen to the economic and political state of the
world than take selfies like his age mates. This shows that he surrounded himself with more
mature people who talk about more mature things. Having education and fanatical support
systems would make you more mature and open-minded.

“Real maturity is not what you see in the mirror, real maturity is what you see through
your eyes” ― Sir P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar. Being able to understand people and certain situations
can also determine your maturity level. A mature person can put themselves into another
person’s shoes to understand their situation, instead of immediately judging them. This has
nothing to do with a person’s age. If you have ever gone out to a public place with your parents,
sometimes they might look at someone wearing something skimpy or flimsy, they immediately
judge the person about their life but sometimes it is never the case. Adapting to life changes
also determines your maturity, not your age. Life will always change, no matter what. It will
bring new people, take away old ones and introduce different challenges for you each day. You
must adapt to them. Maturity also has nothing to do with the money you have at a certain age.
Most people assume that only older mature people can have lots of money and younger people
are not mature enough to have money. In 2019, social media influencer Kylie Jenner was the
youngest billionaire at 21. She was mature at that age enough to build something for herself
and get money from it.
 However, people tend to say age does determine your maturity. A 10-year-old is not
mature as a 25-year-old. As you grow older, you experience more things that would contribute
to your maturity such as going to university, where you experience relationships, friendships,
school life and heartbreaks which shape your psychological thinking and mindset. Having
children as well also contributes to maturity, as you must start planning your life better with
schedules and learn how to manage your money properly to also manage your child properly.
Having children will make you change how you care for your loved ones, as you will start
prioritizing your well-being more than yours. This opens your mind to new experiences that
would teach you greater moral lessons, making you wiser and ready for any challenge and
problem life decides to throw at you, even at your lowest. Research has proven that men do
not fully mature until the age of 43 and women reach maturity at 32. This tells us that no
matter how mature a person seems to look, they will not be as mature as the one who is older,
and their mental thinking will never be the same as life has barely begun to start fighting back
to all the situations you would want to avoid. Their life has barely begun yet so they cannot say
that they have reached the peak for maturity.

Older people have a more developed IQ and mindset. As you grow older, you begin to
develop extensively, increasing your intellect. This would allow older people to make smarter
decisions, since they are smart enough to understand the situation and work around it.
According to www.psychology.com, men and women cannot reach full maturity until their
brains are fully developed. There is no way a 45-year-old man would be playing with toy cars
like a 5-year-old. Older people are more mature because they can plan their life strategically,
not in haste, urgence or inaccuracy. They think about what would happen next so that
everything will come out right, like a recipe for a dish. They can handle financial matters better
than younger people as they learnt in school. A younger person has not reached the level in
education to fully understand how to handle money, therefore they are not more mature than
the person older than them.

To sum it up, People tend to say that age does not determine your maturity levels
because maturity is the ability to take control of the decisions you make and not let your
emotions get too ahead of them. Being mature is about being able to think ethically and
weighing different perspectives for a more insightful decision. Mature people also accept the
fails and faults and would not win or complain if they do something wrong but rather work on it
so that they are ten times better at it the next day. Respecting and obeying others also makes
someone mature, not their age. A lot of younger people do not respect and obey others,
especially when the person is older than them. Malala Yousafzai was 17 when she won a Nobel
Peace Prize and Martin Luther King was past 20 when he won his prize. For this generation, we
need to start empowering the youth, so they know that they can do it and their opinion and
relevance matter to the rest of us. Others tend to say that age does in fact determine your
maturity, because younger people cannot do the things older people can do such as being able
to handle financial problems, as they have not reached the educational level to learn how to do
so. Older people can plan their lives more with precision. They know how to schedule their lives
and love their loved ones the best way. So, back to the question: “Does age really determine
your maturity?” I will leave that for you to decide.