Tim Walker’s Maturity III

Approximately twenty-four years ago a woman told me that girls mature faster than boys; over those years I developed somewhat of an adaptation to this claim.

Indeed, women like to think they mature faster than men.

My assertion relates to what I believe is the woman’s general desire for superiority, because far as I’ve seen through my life’s eyes women have done little to reinforce that initial claim. Pretentious maturity in women..? Sure, see it all the time – young women acting all grown up and holier than thou, attempting to pass themselves off as mature but who you just know are still lacking any ability to take responsibility for their mistakes and who are furthermore, just as financially irresponsible as they were ten years ago.

Fiscal responsibility notwithstanding though, a younger person’s ability to accept responsibility for their own, often questionable, actions I believe represents a large part of the maturity gauge; it relates directly to self-assuredness hence self-confidence and thus the big one, self esteem.

A person who repeatedly shirks responsibility for their mistakes therefore, is not what I would consider a ’mature’ person. Some of these people in fact will deny any wrongdoing to the point where their own brains will actually vindicate them, thereby allowing them to make that same mistake again and again, never realising or accepting that their actions are the cause of the mishap.

Difficult as it might be to believe, even from this middle-aged stance I know a number of similarly aged people who maintain the above ‘avoid and deny’ philosophy. I used to even offer the occasional slice of advice to these people; alas I am now forced to stand by and watch as they insist on making the same basic error again and again, over and over…

Without self assessment there is really no way a person can improve themselves.

…Some years ago, must have been around 2009, I recall engaging in a discussion with a particularly opinionated young woman at my evening salsa class. In response to one of my classically backhanded comments, in what I suspect was intended to be an inaudible slur she muttered, “Yes, well girls do mature faster than guys…”

“D’ya reckon?” I queried with comical incredulity.

She turned, looked at me disdainfully and said simply, “Yes, I do.”

Weeks later I discovered through another female class member that this first young woman was in fact a training high school teacher who had just come out of a ‘heavy’ relationship. Apparently the boyfriend had ‘screwed her over’, laying claim to most every possession in their rented dwelling, ultimately forcing her to move back in with her parents.

My immediate expression of sympathy was met with the words, “Oh I wouldn’t worry about it eh, kind of thing happens all the time with that chick…”

Women love to think they mature faster than men and in some instances this is probably a fair statement to make; some men simply have no idea of how to handle themselves or the lives they profess to lead – they are pathetic people and chances are they will find an equally pathetic woman to continually remind them that girls mature faster than boys.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Matt Ure

Photography by Shirls N Boyce

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