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ToggleMature Adults! What are mature adults? Where are the mature adults?
In psychology, maturity is the ability to respond to the environment in an appropriate manner. This response is generally learned rather than instinctive. Maturity also encompasses being aware of the correct time and place to behave and knowing when to act, according to the circumstances and the culture of the society one lives in.
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maturity_(psychological)
My Father was working in a cotton mill to help support his family by the time he was 11 years old. He never attained an education beyond the sixth grade in a Southern school. He did what he had to do in honest labor, on his part, for his family to survive. As far as I know, he never complained although he often, I’m sure, thought of “what might have been.” He worked throughout his life at whatever honest work he could get: always put food on the table, built our home himself as he got the money (it wasn’t a magnificent home, but it was respectable), bought cars, encouraged his children (3 living and 1 dead at 2 years) to finish their education, paid his own health care expenses and insurance, went to church and contributed, and would have been insulted if someone ever suggested that he take handouts. He paid his own way throughout his life. He was born in 1913, lived through the depression, and died at age 91 from hip replacement complications after suffering a stroke and fall. At my father’s death he had been married to our mother for a little over one month short of 70 years. When they married, she was 19 years of age, and he was 22. I never knew of any animosity between them. Where you saw one of them, the other was usually there. No legal separations, no trial separations, no divorces!
My Mother was a housewife during the above period, and for several years also ran a neighborhood grocery along with my father (while he held full-time jobs elsewhere). She never received an education beyond the ninth grade, due to family economic conditions, in Southern schools. She lived and labored alongside my father without complaint, accepting what life brought them together. They attended church together and their circle of friends were primarily from their church family. My wife and I, on October 19, 2014, attended the 115th Anniversary Celebration of their church where my mother is the oldest living member. My Mother is now 98 years old (will be 99 in February of 2015) and is in a nursing home – and she is still paying her own way through the savings she and my Father accumulated. She lived alone, after my father’s death, until she fell and broke her arm. She then went to an assisted living home in 2007 until she again fell and fracture her spine (in February of 2014). She has fallen a couple of times in the nursing home. She acted as though nothing had happened. Her surviving mental capabilities are very limited, and she can communicate only in a very limited manner – living in the distant past for the most part, and doesn’t recognize her children but occasionally when prompted.
Where are mature adults? The above described two people represent “Maturity” in my opinion. They are at opposing ends of the spectrum when compared with the society of the United States of America (USA) of today. This shift in attitude and personal responsibility has occurred gradually but has accelerated in recent years. This has happened in an environment which offers many advantages to those willing to make a little effort in accessing them. However, we now have the “give-me” generations, with little evidence of intent to change it, in fact, the movement is in the opposite direction. The welfare state is expanding in the USA and has been for many years. The Obama administration has accelerated the USA toward a Socialist Government existence. There is much hope now for a reversal of direction as we go into the year 2015.
The above article, “Mature Adults,” was first published by Donald McElyea on November 6, 2014, on his website, http://www.ihaveheard.com.