27 June

I’m curious if the concept of maturity/immaturity is used less now? As a kid I remember people often assessing a person’s maturity, evaluating peoples’ behaviour according to how well emotionally developed they were. I see that less now, which to me is a bad thing, because what seems to have replaced it is a well-meaning idea that people should just do what feels right to them. I’ve also seen in my life that immaturity can manifest itself in lots of ways - problems in relationships, with money, alcohol, gambling, friendships etc. And with a general lack of resilience, people wallow in sentimentality, emotions are all at 10. And that a person who is immature can easily suck others into the chaos that their immaturity creates, needing to constantly lean on others for support, or try to co-opt them in their problems (get them to drink or shop or eat or gamble with them). The challenge is that by making things about individuals, how does society change this? There used to be mechanisms for chaperoning people through the stages of their life, a lot of which have disappeared. There seem to be so many man-children and women-children now.