How Old is Too Old?

A coworker was telling me about how she discovered a drunk college kid trying to ride a scooter yesterday and how she took it away from him, like his mom or something. She laughed it off as one of those "Boys will be boys" or "Good ol' college kids" type of things, but I feel like he could have killed someone or himself. I mean, he didn't, but he could have. She tells me I am not the norm for worrying about such things because most kids are wrapped up in that excitement of school, which I also get. Believe me, at 21 my head was full of hormones and bad judgement just like the rest of the world, but where does it end? When should parents stop bailing their kids out? I mean seriously, if my daughter thinks she is going to pull this crap when she is 22, she is mistaken! Also, have you ever noticed that we bump the maturity age back and back until mother's are running errands for their 30+ children? When they are toddlers, we say "Oh, they're just a baby!" Then, "Oh, you know... teenagers!" Then, "Well, they should be able to enjoy college" until it eventually turns into "Well, he's single and doesn't have anyone else to take care of him." This isn't helping anyone. Eventually these kids are going to have relationships with people who are not going to want to play second fiddle to meddling mothers who can't cut the apron strings.

Yesterday I attended an graduate school orientation for all graduate students. Unlike the day before at a BBQ for my specific cohort, the orientation yesterday was a general orientation. After hearing about people who's husbands were traveling to Ireland for the month or another girl who spent the last six weeks in Peru "learning the language" at the BBQ the day before, I was starting to feel slightly unaccomplished and immature; however, after the orientation yesterday I was feeling like an old bitty. There is just no consistency. So, the people behind me were giggling and chatting through the entire session and being generally immature. I expect some of this type of thing because we are all human, but at that early in the morning it was really annoying. I started to wonder what age signified the term "grown up" to people. I mean, at what age do we stop acting like children and act like civilized adults? Don't get me wrong because I know what it's like to be sitting in a large crowd and bored out of my mind, giggling with my friends about stupid things, but why get out of bed to be at an informational session at 8:00 AM just to talk through it? I was so unbelievably bored myself and was fighting the urge to nod off, but then I realized that I had no one to blame but myself for actually going to it. Why not just leave instead of talk?

So what I realized is that there isn't an age where people actually "grow up" and become adults. Of course, there is a psychologically defined age where people are expected to be mature, but most people do not adhere to that age. I just feel like there should be a set age where we can say to people "Alright you're 22 now, shut up when it's time to listen" or "Okay you're 30, it's time to move out of your mother's house" (like that movie Failure to Launch). Then I realized that the whole process seemed a little socialistic, even if it would be nice. I mean, I remember sitting in an auditorium with my friends "A" and "J" laughing and whispering (okay, it was mostly J and me) through our commencement ceremony due to sheer boredom, so I too am guilty. Then again, we were there for a long time and most of the information didn't pertain to us, so that was different! Okay, not really, but it makes me feel less guilty for being a hypocrite. Basically I feel like you should listen if you actually came there to listen. The orientation was all about listening; the commencment ceremony was just plain boring and disorganized, but still there was no excuse and I do feel bad.

So then I wondered if it were only certain regions or certain groups of people that were allowed to carry on their college days into their adult life without maturing. Sometimes I feel like a slacker in comparison to people from ivy league schools who were prepped their whole lives for law school, but then I feel abnormally mature next to Boulder frat kids burning their couches on the lawns. Do these people all grow up to have the same maturity level and it all just evens out in the end? How could it? How could an ivy league prepster be as equally successful as a drunken frat kid in the end? Okay, I am done ranting and raving. It was just a thought! So in conclusion, I wanted to say 23 is the magical maturity age, but I think maturity is on a sliding scale based n upbringing, overbearing mothers, region, education, hormones, anger, excitement, and genetics. In other words, we are all too different to come to a solid conclusion on the matter. There is no way to decipher the reasoning behind it. So instead I will get some sleep instead. ;)