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Age and Maturity
I’d like for them to be congruent, but…
When I was twenty-five, one of my early girlfriends was seventeen. When I have put that out as an argument for maturity and age, I have been accused of being a pedophile. She was, after all, under the age of legal consent. Right?
Yes and no. At seventeen, she was what is called an Emancipated Minor. Both of her parents had died, and she was “of age” to conduct her own affairs and run her own life.
‘But she was still seventeen!’ I have been screamed at. ‘She was still too young!’
I have known individuals who, even though their chronological age was in their fifties or even sixties, their emotional age was much less than that (if it was even at that [emotional] age of seventeen).
One of my Ex’s said that, on a good day, she felt she was twenty-seven. Most days however, she felt like she was seven. This woman was a therapist. And her chronological age? 56.
Mistakes Were Made (Yes.)
Another one of my girlfriends (for about one week while I was hitchhiking with her — and that’s a whole ‘nother story) was also seventeen. She had been on her own since the age of twelve, when her parents had kicked her out of their home because she was ‘too much to handle.’
