maturity

Today as we played with the twins, my daughter turned to me and said “You know Mom, you will be almost 50! when these guys are 10.” Well, I will technically be 48, but who’s counting. “yup” I said. It was hard to imagine. Ruby turns 12 in a month and that is something I am still amazed at. At (almost) 50, will I be a better mother? Will I be active in my kids lives or an old stubborn opinionated and jaded crumudgon? Will I mature? Or has that pretty much leveled off. And I have reached my potential maturity and at some point I stopped maturing and that’s as good as it will ever get.

I took the subway into Manhattan on Friday. I sat on the bench because I was too old and tired to stand. In front of me on the pillar was some graffiti. It said “kra-z krew”. I imagined a few young kids together, not old enough to drink. Trying to show off to each other, tagging whatever was in reach. I wondered if that graffiti would still be there in 10 – 15 years. And maybe the writer would sit where I am sitting and recognize it and look back and think of that time as a time when they were less mature. When I see photos of myself as a teenager hung up all around my parents house, I laugh fondly at my punk rock hair styles, and my exaggerated white skin and black eye make up and red lips. I stand there in my yellow t-shirt and brown hair looking at the photo of a time when I would not be caught dead in either. As a teenager I made a choice not to carry out a pregnancy to term, I knew I lacked a partner, money and support, but I really lacked maturity most of all. And the strength to do it alone. Was then maturity strength? Was it years of hard living that earned me the maturity I have now? Hard knocks that involved having to create that maturity inside over and over again when I needed to get back up again?

I often judge people by their reactions to things and assume it is based on their level of maturity. Even without knowing them very well, it takes me a second to make this assessment usually. Look at the guy who will not let you pass him on the highway. Or the girl who makes a face and a tisk sound if not given the answer she wants. One specific example is when once I was stuck on a plane on the tarmac for a couple of hours and the 20 something guy next to me called the airline and complained to them and threatened them as if they controlled the weather. OK, that was entitlement and ignorance too, but he did not have the maturity to cope with it. But then is maturity just how good your coping skill is? Do the contestants on American Idol that react in anger when rejected all share a lack of maturity? If maturity is based on coping than I have some fluctuating maturity as sometimes I am able to cope better than other times. Yes, your three year old having a temper tantrum in the store when not allowed to have a toy would be considered his lack of maturity and common for a child his age. So when as adults we fly off the handle and create a scene, is that then a lack of maturity?

I know people older than myself by thirty years who are unable to cope with simple tasks. And as I get older some things that I would have been able to handle are now more difficult. But somehow I am much more mature than I was even 5 years ago. Some years you have to grow up a lot. My husband can act like a total goof, usually it is to make our children laugh (Ruby just rolls her eyes at him), and has been known to do the most insane things. Ruby bought a book called the Guide to Immaturity and within the first 20 pages a great many examples were things Tom had done (although they need to include climbing into the ice cream freezer bodega and lying across the ice cream knocking up on the glass in the next printing). But at the same time, when speaking of emotional maturity, he is one of the most mature men I have ever met. He is able to put ego and pride aside and step up and make adult decisions and show wisdom beyond his years. I like to think that like maturities attract. That it is a strong factor in a couple working out. Although Tom doesn’t have the parenting experience I have had, he seems to be able to handle the parenting role pretty easily. Maybe maturity is something we learn from our parents, passed on from generation to generation.

As a parent I have figured out a lot on my own. But I never seem to stop learning. As an older parent I will need to be careful not to age myself out of my children’s lives. I think that is a choice and I hope to be the parent my children are inspired by. I don’t ever want to be the parent that stops feeling like they have so much to learn.

As someone very very thankful my 20’s are long in my past, I find myself at a philosophical place I wouldn’t have predicted. I try now to laugh things off. For example someone who knows how to push my buttons recently owed me $14.95 and refused to pay me giving the most asinine reason. Usually I would have steamed about it for a few days…and I did for one honestly. But one morning I looked at my kids at the breakfast table and started to laugh about it. I laughed all week about it every time I talked or thought about it. I felt I had gained an ability to take a step back and see things in perspective and that this was what it was like to gain a bit more maturity.

Overall I have also gained an understanding about karma and suffering and life and death and identity and happiness that it has taken a lifetime to come around to. But now I also can play, and have a sense of play now like I had when I was very young. Tom often says he sees the little girl in me. I hope at almost 50, he will still see it. Although I can’t promise I won’t have a temper tantrum when I can’t get something I want.