my bioparents talked a lot about "maturity", and like a lot of people, by "mature" and "immature" they meant "willing to do what i say" and "not willing to do what i say" respectively. it was a measure of approval or disapproval rather than anything more broadly meaningful. "mature" for shutting up and following orders. "immature" for asking why they wanted me to do something. and so on.
i am aware that maturity is a thing, that there is wisdom that comes with age, that age often correlates with having more experiences and knowledge and that people often call this maturity. i've experienced my brain starting to work better as i've gotten older. i'm not claiming that age does nothing.
but age has nothing to do with why i was willing to speak to my biodad after almost a decade. maturity has nothing to do with it. i found one crucial piece of information that changed the way my entire life history looked, and because of this i'm willing to do things i previously wasn't. but my biodad's first reaction, despite knowing that i'd changed my mind based on specific new information, was to approve of the fact that i was doing what he wanted by crediting my "maturity". we'd barely exchanged a few words and he was already trying to drag me back into a world where his definitions matter and my experiences don't.
calling me "mature" was not a compliment. it was an attempt to reestablish control over me. what he meant was "of course you changed your mind when you realized that i'd been right the whole time and you'd been nothing but a stupid child." would you want to take that as a compliment?
and then i made a vent post about this, and a bunch of people decided to get on my ass about how um actually maturity is a real thing and you're stupid for saying it's not.
