Maturity of Boys and Girls

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Yes. But then, girls are generally interested in one thing too -- the same things boys are generally interested in.

(Yep -- when all is said and done, all anyone really wants, is pizza.)

 

Fork out the money and you can have all you want. (Pizza, that is.)

 

Well, I'm male and 44, and as a member of a gaming forum, obviously not mature for my age . AFAIK, the oldest female SP member is Rallymama, who's a spring chicken at 40.

So there you have it - proof positive that females mature faster than males.

(For the record, common belief is that girls mature faster than boys. Whether that's true or not, I have no idea. I've seen evidence proving both sides of the arguement.)

Totally off-topic - I never knew Sojourner was female - I always thought she was a he. Don't know why I thought that, though.

 

Given the maturity of your outlook, it is not surprising that you couldn't do more than one thing at a time.

 

Obviously

 

It was put in brackets, but in my view quite important. I agree totally with Splunge on this one. Common belief says girls mature faster. I, too, have seen evidence for that, for the opposite and for a neutral claim that there is no such difference.

What surprises me is that I am being attacked not for making an opposite claim (ie boys maturing faster, which I don't claim, but someone can always mistake me for the sake of sheer quarrelling ), but for claiming that girls and boys mature equally fast.

This leads me to a question: does the problem in itself matter or am I being scolded for questioning a common belief?

Should I apologise for forcing you to think?

Chandos, the sense of your elaborate construct apparently escapes me.

I don't know what you imply. Perhaps you mean doing three things at a time: studying, working and caring about children? I refrain from comments until you have confirmed.

However, there is something that simply has to be said:

Education requires attention and children require attention. Studies and child-raising don't go together.

What is more, a household actually requires money to maintain. Raising children also requires a lot of money and anyone who has ever had a pale shade of contact with it, knows how much of money, effort and attention it takes.

People who think it's done by saying a "yes", lack a firm grasp on reality. In fact, they lack any grasp on reality. Unless their money grows on trees or they are not going to bring their children up but just let them grow up. Like you grow corn.

Sorry, I'm not going to become a welfare recipient and breed more welfare recipients. I want my family to have a steady and well-maintained home that will last and will give support, always. I want all their material, intellectual, emotional and spiritual needs taken care of. I want them to be good and strong people, which requires some great deal of attention. I want them to be educated and even learned. I want them to land good jobs when their time comes and give to their own children the same I will have given to them.

That is not achievable at the age of 20 unless one is:

• A millionaire
• A genius

Of course, one can be a farmer or an artisan inheriting both the house and the job from his parents and learning his skills through work instead of pursuing the way of academic education and seeking a good employer (alt. opening a business). However, it's an external circumstance and as such has nothing to do with maturity or lack thereof.

As I see it:

24: the age when I get my LLM

Absolutely no children until then. Not buying any house or appartment or anything, as I don't know where I will work in the first place. I guess it would be very mature to buy a house near my parents and go to work in another city or country

28: the approximate age when I get a doctorate or bar membership and the right to practice as a lawyer, or a job that will last

A good moment to marry (if not already) and have the first child.

What would be more mature? To care not about studies and job and just get married and make babies with a randomly chosen and hastily wed girl in my parents' house?

Don't beat around the bush. If that's what you think, have the guts to say that aloud.

@Sarevok-: I expected more from you. I admit my mistake.

On a final note and to finish off the problem of marrying early versus getting a job etc first.

In all brutal reality, historical (and now becoming obsolete) role of woman was to find a realiable male to take care of her and her children.

Historical role of man was to be that reliable male.

Therefore, the role of the male was to nail down a good position and the role of the female was to nail down the male.

In all brutal honesty, how can anyone claim that any one of them is more mature than the other? To me they appear more or less equally mature and equally fast maturing.

In present times, when historical roles have undergone substantial changes, the gender-related differences are becoming more and more irrelevant.

In present times, individual traits count. Personality, character, physical abilities/limitations. That's one. Everyone has his own view on what maturity is, that's another one. We have no right to enforce our views on the other people.

My proposed conclusion is: women and men (boys and girls) mature equally fast in other respects than puberty (sexual maturing).

For an objective conclusion, we would need to have objective standards of maturity. Do we? Don't let us be silly, there is no way we all fully agree on what is mature and what is not. Surely we won't agree on the level of importance of each "mature" trait relative to other "mature" traits, anyway.

On a formal note: we don't need spite and elaborate insults to reach conclusions.

Howgh!

 

Chevalier. You make some well reasoned arguments and I think it is clear to us what your position is. What I would add to clarify my thoughts is that not everybody can go to university and become a lawyer (or similar professional). There are plenty of people who can become successful and happy in their lives working in other careers in shops, factories, small businesses etc. They might not earn as much as you will as a lawyer but they are still not in the realm of being welfare recipients. If, like my parents, you don't drink or smoke, and are sensible with your money, you can give your kids all the opportunity they need. As I said before, some of the happiest, most well-adjusted families that I know are run by couples who married and started families in their very early twenties, without being either millionaires or geniuses.

As I have said before, different circumstances apply to different people (which is part of what makes these boards so interesting).

 

@ dmc

Hear, hear!
This exactly what I think. By the way, it's true that standarts of "maturity" are different for everyone so one cannot be completely objective on the subject.
For my part, I have always linked maturity with responsiblity so a mature person would be someone able to assume his/hers actions, mistakes etc..
Also, it's quite true that everyone has equal chances in that aspect. I just want to point out that in our society, conditioning has made it that girls are able to take on responsibilites earlier than boys (if I remember rightly, not fifty years ago: girls were still taught to sew and cook in schools while boys were taught football (aka soccer) etc..).
Now that was just a small generalisation made to explain the common belief. I hope it is understood that in our present time, it doesn't apply to most people (boys & girls get equal education and chores).
So to sum up: everyone is born the same, conditioning does the rest.

 

Not 50 years ago. When I was in junior high school (30 years ago) there was home economics for girls (cooking, etc. - it had nothing to do with economics), and shops for boys (basically how to be a handyman). I don't know if those are still taught (I don't have any children), but it still points to the conditioning that Lady Luthien refers to.

[ March 28, 2004, 22:05: Message edited by: Splunge ]

 

How nice to see how most of us agree on most of the basics

@Splunge: I already had cooking at school together with girls Girls had technical drawing et al together with boys.

@Harbourboy: I couldn't agree more. What I meant was that continuing your education instead of marrying and having children early isn't immature. Neither is choosing a job not based on academic skills. My point is: it has no bearing on maturity at all.

People who don't go to college, university etc, they are prone to consider the academics immature because they are not getting a job and making babies since early twenties.

People who get academic education instead, they will look down to the rest of the world and see them as immature because they are not getting more and more courses and diplomas.

Both groups feel unjustly treated, but neither feels unjustly treating.

What I call immature, with regard to getting education or not, is dropping out of school because of opposite sex relations, or the urge and pressure to marry etc, and as a result: ending up unemployed with children, or working hard for sheer subsistence - while the person could have cared more for his or her future and would normally have finished the studies and landed a better paying job. With all respect and without any positive/negative assessment, that's immaturity for which one has to pay to the end of his or her days.

Or get over it and lead a normal life - which is the most mature thing ever to do, anyway.

Please note that I'm not telling anyone how to live his life. I only intend to show that there's no best way and it's ridiculous to claim that whoever lives differently must be immature. That's what I pointed out and attacked.