Growing Up

[lillibet]

[Poll #1077105]

Comments

[dpolicar]

several of the ones I didn't check are sometimes a sign of immaturity, but I can think of more complex stories that can potentially be told.

[lifecollage.livejournal.com]

Ditto. Particularly "strained family relationships," because now you're including other people and the question of of their relative im/maturity. You may be 23 and perfectly mature in your relationship with your dad, but if he hasn't quite grown up yet, there will be strain.

[dpolicar]

Or if you're both perfectly grown up, but happen to disagree about something important. Or, or, or.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

the brain is physically immature (not completely myelinated &c) until age 25 or so. since that's what a person runs on, i can hardly blame them for not *acting* mature before then. (at the current low state of neurological knowledge, at least; hopefully later i can have a more informed opinion about the brain maturity/behavioral/cognitive relationships.)

[spwebdesign.livejournal.com]

I noticed several items checked which can, perhaps should, be attributed to other factors. Take lack of communication skills, for example: how is that a sign of immaturity rather than a sign that someone's education is lacking for some reason or other? Or perhaps fiscal irresponsibility or unsteady employment, which can be signs of immaturity, certainly, but can simply reflect circumstances or lifestyle choices (like, say, someone who chooses to give more to others than he can really afford: is she necessarily immature, or does she perhaps have other priorities in life?). It certainly is a tricky question.

[dpolicar]

(nods) I gave a lot of thought to that question when answering, too.
But some of these were quite a lot easier than others for me.

For example -- I agree with you that choosing to living a life of poverty because you give away a lot of money, because you value charity more than prosperity, is not necessarily a sign of immaturity. But I would say that it's also not fiscal irresponsibility, if you're doing it with an understanding and acceptance of the consequences. If you're just giving away money because you have the impulse to do that, without considering/accepting the consequences, I would call that both irresponsible and immature.

For a number of others, my basic sense is "OK, you may not be good at this, for any number of reasons -- perhaps neurological, perhaps historical. But part of growing up is learning what your weaknesses are and finding ways to cope with them that don't place an undue burden on innocent bystanders."

[goat.livejournal.com]

You know, I think the ability to consider and accept the consequences of one's actions or inactions, and to do your best to not negatively affect others, are probably a lot better indicators of maturity than many of the things on E's list.

[dpolicar]

I think a lot of things on the original list are flavors of that (fiscal irresponsibility, tardiness, etc.). But yeah, owning your own shit is a big thing with me. I'm also really big on being able to listen to and talk about things.

[kerri9494.livejournal.com]

I don't think I agree with the second part. There are so many adults in this world who are plenty mature, and have no desire but to negatively affect others. I only checked two answers, in fact, because most of the options can just as easily be attributed to being a mature asshole as they can to being immature.

[goat.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around that. (not in a bad way, just chewing on it)

[goat.livejournal.com]

A lot of these things can be attributed to mental illness. I say this having battled depression, ADD, a touch of bipolar disorder, PTSD, and who knows what else. It makes getting and keeping all of those things together a hell of a lot harder.

Likewise a person who has Aspergers, for example, has a pretty damn good excuse for not having yet developed great communication skills.

[desireearmfeldt]

I find it interesting to see so much agreement (the graph is spiky).

I found it interesting, while thinking of my answers, to discover that "this is bad" and "this is immature" were not synonymous for me. Some things (like strained family relationships) I classed as "not necessesarily one person's fault/under their control." But why are there some things I consider bad habits yet not signs of immaturity? All I can come up with is that some things on the list I think are less habits and more inherant characteristics, i.e. more difficult to consciously control.

But somehow I've ranked "poor hygeine" as controllable and "habitual tardiness" as inherant, which is silly. I can only think that because habitual tardiness, while one of my pet peeves, is something I've tolerated in nearly all my close friends, all of my life, I can't bring myself to claim it's a sign of immaturity.

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

I struggled over the question of "habitual tardiness." For me, tardiness used to be a passive-aggressive rebellion: I didn't want to do x, so I showed up half an hour late. When I figured out that was what I was doing, I worked hard to change my behaviour. I'm still late more often than I would like, but these days it's more about over-commitment. Another sign of immaturity, but one I've decided to live with.

[hahathor.livejournal.com]

I have difficulty with answering polls like this because I'm never quite sure what the items mean. What is "fiscal irresponsibility"? Is it having large amount of credit card debt? Is it failing to plan for retirement? Is it spending all your money the day you get paid so you can't eat for the rest of the week?

Some of these items (poor communication skills, low self-esteem, self-centeredness) apply to pretty much everyone I know, to some extent. At what point do they move from just being human to being an indicator of immaturity?

So, depending on interpretation, I could check virtually all of the above, or virtually none of the above.

(caveat: the above may be a function of the fact that my job includes survey construction, and I spend a lot of time identifying measurable benchmarks as indicators of underlying constructs)

[folzgold.livejournal.com]

Huh. I have to say, it's mildly upsetting to see how this poll turned out. Even if the brain is still considered not fully grown until age 25, writing off behaviors as, "Oh, he or she is just young," is unacceptable to me.

I don't consider any of the top as signs of immaturity, because I've seen plenty of 'adults' with one, some, or many of those problems.

Understandably, some people are young--like pre-adolescents and early-adolescents. And, cognitive science isn't wrong to say that the brain is not fully formed until age 25. However, that doesn't give anyone license to say "You need to be this old before we stop writing you off and can let you in on the decision process," and that's what the idea of 'maturity' is often used for.

[fenicedautun.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, I checked the same response, but I actually do believe that sometimes that is the reason, but never an excuse. To me, somebody not realizing why they're doing something wrong because of their maturity/age is the excuse, but that can happen at a variety of ages for a variety of reasons, and isn't always about age/maturity at all (culture/upbringing/etc). So, I would have liked better an "it depends" box (is that the "i am cos" box?)

[quietann.livejournal.com]

In one area of my life (rat breeding) I do see younger breeders make the same mistakes over and over again, and the ones who stay with it are the ones who learn from their mistakes. If the mistakes are rarely made by older people, does this mean it's OK to attribute them to "immaturity?"

The mistakes in question are mostly variations of "getting in over one's head."

[dpolicar]

(nods) Agreed that writing people's opinions off because of their age is a problem. It's important to allow the people affected by a decision to be involved in that decision.

That said, I wouldn't involve a 5-year-old in the decision process for certain topics the same way that I'd involve a 15-year-old, nor a 15-year-old the way I'd involve a 50-year-old.

All of that said, I'll also say that there are behaviors I'll tolerate from someone in their early 20s, on the grounds that they may not have had the opportunity to learn better yet, that I simply won't tolerate from someone in their 30s.

[marmota.livejournal.com]

I think you're misreading this; I saw the poll as more a matter of determining what behaviors are tolerated on the basis of inexperience up to a certain age, not writing off people below a certain age. For example as the survey is showing so far, it's generally expected that someone has had ample opportunity to figure out basic hygiene by the time they're 25, and is far less likely to get cut any slack on it after that point.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

That the way I was viewing it, too.

[starphire.livejournal.com]

I agree with you to a point.
I'm definitely with you in rejecting age as a determinant of maturity.
Likewise, kids should not be written off from participating in the decision processes that affect them (and I was an appointed member of a city council parks & recreation committee and a full voting member of a church board of directors at 17), if they seem ready for it.

However if I think about these behaviors as different kinds of small i immaturity exhibited by people who are otherwise seen as 'adults', rather than evidence of general Immaturity, then I would at least consider those behaviors which negatively impact others and the world around them as a display of a general kind of immaturity. A way in which that person has not 'grown up', and may never grow up.

Putting someone who is chronically late on a job that demands critical attention to timing (air traffic controller, emergency response coordinator), or putting someone who is fiscally irresponsible in charge of other people's money, or promoting a teacher with poor communication skills - these are suboptimal at best, possibly grounds for losing a job. People's various kinds of immaturity will continue to be judged and used against them throughout their lives.

[bookly.livejournal.com]

I checked 'fiscal irresponsibility' and 'unsteady employment', but wanted to qualify them. By the former, I mean someone who cannot or will not honor their debts, regardless of what other financial behaviors the person engages in. In the latter, I exclude people who were let go for reasons not of their own doing and who are making concerted efforts to find a job.

I think I define immaturity as the inability to take care of oneself to at least a minimum standard. Fiscal irresponsibility, inability to hold down a job, over-reaction to events, and poor hygiene are perhaps the most salient indicators of this to me. The other things on your list might be present, as well, but they're also present in people I know who take reasonably good care of themselves. Conversely, I think there are things not on your list that fit my definition (and some of which I'm guilty of), such as poor nutrition, lack of exercise, not getting enough sleep, and extreme procrastination.

I checked 25 because that seems like the age at which most people who are planning to go to college have completed it and had a few years to flounder around and get their real-world legs under them. It's interesting that this coincides with so many other responses that were perhaps given for different reasons.

[bookly.livejournal.com]

After pondering this more, I think I apply most of the things I mentioned at the end of the second paragraph mainly to myself -- it's a sign of immaturity IN MYSELF that I don't eat properly, etc. etc. I only consider it a sign of immaturity in other people when the effects are noticeable, such as when lack of proper nutrition affects the person's ability to function, for example.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

I tend to draw a distinction between functional immaturity and dysfunctional immaturity.

If someone's frequently unemployed, but budgets for it so that they always manage to cover the rent--or is habitually late, but has learned to stay out of situations where that's a deal-breaker--or is a total drama queen, but recognizes when it's someone else's turn to be queen and their own turn to step back a bit--that's functional. The immature person hasn't, or is unable to, cease the immature behaviors, but they've learned to adapt and have surrounded themselves with folks who tolerate their immaturities.

Examples of dysfunctional immaturity might include folks who have been fired from a succession of jobs because they couldn't meet deadlines, or folks who are still living with their parents because they're not willing to take any of the jobs that'd pay enough for them to have their own place. Or, to get away from the fiscal/employment thing, folks without any singing experience who join an opera group 'to meet people' and then rant in their LJ how everyone in the opera group are stuck-up bitches who look down on everyone without singing experience.

I also set the "oh, they're just young" barrier fairly high, at around 30 (I'm 33). Not because I write off people in the "just young" category, but because I work for a college and know perfectly well that college students don't magically become adults just because someone's handed them a diploma. Conversations with visiting alumni who I knew as undergrads have convinced me that the adjustment period takes longer for some folks.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

Some of the people I admire and respect most in this world have had the kind of "fuctional unemployment" you describe. I wouldn't even call it "functional immaturity," because it takes an extremely mature person to decide that they don't *need* a particular level of financial stability, and that what makes a good life is not necessarily steady income to rely on. They remain flexible and adabtable. Of course I know a lot of musicians and artists and a few poets and playwrites, so this is my sample set: functional adults who have figured out how to live in this money-driven world, while still being art-driven people. The ones I'm thinking of never let their financial instability be a burden on other people, they have found a way to work with it and structure a good, rich, fulfilling life around it.

[starphire.livejournal.com]

Yay for that. I'll have one of those lives, please.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

I don't really feel like this is a question I can answer by checking off boxes. For one thing, I think as other people have commented, that most if not all of these can be signs of immaturity, or can be situational.
Also, I think it's really in the combinations and the number of behaviors and how they interact. Perhaps "lack of self-awareness," might be the only one I can feel a but more certain about, but that's suck a slippery quality to observe- self-awareness can have many faces.

Lately I've been feeling that the people I consider the most mature are the ones who seem to have the fewest answers, the fewest hard-set opinions, and the most open minds. It seemed so cliched, because there seem to be a lot of songs that say the same thing- I used to know everything, but now that I'm older I know nothing... that kind of sentiment, but, yeah, if I'm at a party and I hear someone Telling It Like It Is, it's not unlikely that I'll feel that they need a little growing.

Of late I'm fidgetting with a definition of growing up as "learning to navigate the waters between the shores of What I Want and the shores of What I Think Is A Good Idea." That means being able to recognize and be aware of what one wants, and being able to create an informed image of what would make a good idea, *both* of which require some maturity, and then not always defaulting to one shore or another, but to skillfully navigate. Maybe when I'm much older, I'll decide that water is a pond, and the two shores are one in the same.... or maybe not. I'm not done growing up yet, so I don't know.

[jicama]

I like that definition. I used to try to make decisions only based on What I Think Is A Good Idea, but in recent years have come to accept that What I Want is important too. And then try to pay attention and notice what that is.

[starphire.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there are many kinds of self-awareness - being truly aware of all of them would make one pretty enlightened or something. Which can make it very frustrating to deal with people who assume they're completely self-aware but will still argue over petty things and play ego games without recognizing them.

And Oh Yeah, it would be great if everyone got more open-minded with age. Unfortunately some people go the other way, and cling to the past, and that makes them bitter.

Finally, navigating between shores is a decent metaphor for balancing one's own needs against the external impact of following those impulses.

[muffyjo]

Immaturity: the constantly moving decimal place. While I think all of the above can be symptoms of it, I think the point miss_chance made about owning your own baggage is a large part of it.

In that, I think not having to make it about you can also be a key ingredient. When you are confident enough that your needs are being met (or can be met) and you approach any given conflict from the position of interest but not need, that's probably a good measure of maturity.

In other words, when you have the wherewithal to manage the details of your own life, to pay your debts, to be good to your word, to value other people's time as much as your own, to keep yourself clean, etc... and you can find the energy and space to take interest in others without having to make that all about you and letting it be a real flow of give and take in turn, that is also a sign of maturity to me.