Growing up: The responsibility of maturity.

I received slight criticism for my post on “Navigating YOUR success“.  The feedback was simply that my blog was a little firm, in the manner of over using the capitalization of YOU & YOUR. I started to change some of the wording and then I considered something. The feedback was from a female and I explained to her that my audience is young males. The way a father talks to his son is different than a mother talks to her son. The capitalization is necessary in the context of my previous blog. I want to impart responsibility to my audience. Their success or dare I say survival, is based on them accepting responsibility. The YOU & YOUR was me assigning responsibility to him for his success.

That discussion motivated this weeks blog.

Growing up is a transition. It’s not an; age, tattoo, badge, muscle, or a certain height. It’s not passive or aggressive but you have to accept it. Being a man, growing up is the accumulation of responsibility. Your behavior, actions, and thought process starts to become less dependent and more independent. It could start out with; shoveling the snow, holding your younger siblings hand when crossing the street, washing your own clothes, pumping the gas, learning how to cook your own meals, doing your homework without being told, etc. The list goes on but these are subtle things that contribute to your growth.

Your parent(s) will take pride in not having to do those things for you. It’s not that they don’t want to take care or you, but the would appreciate witnessing you taking on your role in the household. You don’t have to wait for them to stop doing things for you, you can eventually do them on your own. Their son is growing up, it’s a common rite of passage. In a marriage ceremony, the tradition is that the bride is given away by the father. That father wants to give his daughter away to a man. The father is holding you responsible for his daughter’s care, safety, and well being. Before he gives his daughter away, you have to demonstrate your level of responsibility to him. Before you receive a “reward” of a wife, you have to exhibit your financial stability and your individual accomplishments as a human being. He’s balancing his judgement on your demonstration or example of responsibility. At some point and time, you will have to take out the trash, cook, clean, and be financially responsible for your own children, his grand babies. Your acts of responsibility start now with you taking out the dang trash. 🙂

Maturity means standing on your own. It means financially, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually standing on your own. Financial responsibility means you pay your own bills, maintain your residence, earn and spend your money responsibly without the constant help from someone else. You can control your emotions. Your emotions don’t negatively affect someone else. You can navigate in society without emotional outburst that endanger others. You are spiritually balanced. You can grow to pursue your belief system and manage your own realistic expectations without manipulative influence from others. Lastly, your intellectual base is sound. You can make cognitive decisions for you and your family. You are a human being with the individual capacity to contribute to the society.

MPM

Probably the most significant and my first blog bible quote:

1 Corinthian 13:11 “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” NIV

-Shoot out to Rashed & Joseph, two young brothers I was teaching how to shake hands today. Etiquette blog subject for next week!

Related articles

• Grow up, Growing up, Grown up. (hopefullyfaithfullylovingly.wordpress.com)
• Dear Hope: Responsibility (onebridgeofhope.wordpress.com)