Why Men Mature Slower Than Women
I once heard that on average, men are five years less mature than their actual age. Hence, an eighteen-year old may still tell immature sexual jokes that we would tell on the playground; a twenty-three year old may still drink like he’s underage; a thirty-year old may be going through life choices that women would have dealt with five years earlier. I’ve seen this theory played out throughout my life but the question that goes through my mind is why this is. Is it biology: were males truly created as a less mature species and are they lacking some simple mechanism in their brain to keep them up to speed with us females? Is it evolution: as females become progressively more empowered and ‘equal’ with men, have the men simply given up on trying?
I’ve put some thought into this highly philosophical debate and my belief is that men’s immaturity is a result of nurture, of us women babying our sons, which ultimately causes them to adopt simple life skills at a much slower pace. I blame society mostly for this. When women were expected to be domestic housewives, it probably seemed natural to pass on the skills of folding laundry and cooking meals for their hardworking husbands to their young and eager daughters. Their sons didn’t have as much of a use for these skills since they would move on from mother to wife and have a different female continue to take care of them. Although times have changed since the Leave it to Beaver era, I don’t think mom’s attitudes have much.
I saw this first-hand between me and my brother. He was the only boy of four children which probably caused some sympathy from my mom. Perhaps she felt it was her duty to take care of her little boy whose older sisters put him in dresses when he was a toddler and who had to deal with four other women’s PMS. But when I really noticed how much he was babied in comparison to me, the actual baby of the family, was when we were in high school. I remember waking up early to pack my lunch while my brother slept in and got his lunch made for him. Laundry was another thing that my brother didn’t have to do, unless my parents were on vacation and then he would turn to me.
When I moved away for school, I noticed that this strange laundry phenomenon amongst most of the boys in my dorm. Many of us girls were asked to teach them how to use the laundry machines in the first few weeks and even more guys just gave up on the idea of doing their own laundry and brought bags of dirty clothes home with them for their mothers to do. Two years later, I moved into a house with two other girls and four guys. And even though the guys were fun to be with, cleaning up after them was not. The worst part came when our dishwasher broke. The sink was always full and when me and the girls decided not to do their dishes anymore, our countertops soon filled with stacks of plates and glasses. We had an intervention and one of the guys came clean. “I never had to do dishes at home,” he said. “I don’t know how.”
I was in disbelief at the fact that these boys never had to once clean a plate or even a fork. I took pity for them and their deprivation of household duties and decided to teach them. I first turned on the tap, then I squeezed some soap into the sink and then I showed them how to take a sponge and rub it on the dishes until they magically became clean. I mean, I could see how difficult this must be for someone who was never taught. But even after the lesson, the stacks continued to be put on the counter.
I have many more examples such as guys my age who still have their beds made by their moms, who never have to do groceries, and who still drive their laundry home cities away. But I think I’ve made my point. Ladies, stop babying your sons because one day your daughters have to deal with them and we would love a man who cooks and cleans.
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