As a kid, age seems like such a big deal. Does anyone remember in elementary school, when kids would decide who was right in an argument by who was older? It was as if the two month age difference really did mean that much. Even in middle school students aren't often very close with the older (or younger) grade students. Is the one year difference between grades really that important? I don't quite understand. Adults seem to be associated with other adults of all ages. Most people's parents aren't the same age. And I'm sure that adults don't finish arguments by saying "I'm three years older than you so I'm right and you're wrong". It seems like as we get older, age matters less. A lot of things matter less, actually. As we get older, and more "mature", we forget about little things like age, and start to think about more "important" things.

So when are we fully considered adults? Is there a specific moment when we stop caring about age, and other seemingly frivolous, childish things, and start thinking like "adults"? In J.D Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye", the main character (Holden Caulfield) spends a lot of time with boys that are various ages. One boy in particular, Ackley, who is about two years older than Holden, but in some ways just as immature. Ackley prides himself on being older than Holden. He is a perfect example of people who say "I'm older than you, so I'm right". However a lot of the time, Ackley isn't right. He's often irrational, inconsiderate, and insensitive-and let's not forget immature. But at eighteen, Ackley is a legal adult. He would get charged for crimes as an adult, is charged an adult at movie theaters and museums, can legally get a driver's licence, ect. He's considered an adult because he's eighteen, s he must be a mature adult, right? I'm sure that Holden, and other characters that knew Ackley, would beg to differ. They still know him as the immature boy he is. So can age really have that much impact on maturity? 

Holden himself says "People say I'm awful immature for a sixteen year old, cause I like to horse around so goddam much". Everything he does he does because he wants to, and he thinks pretty irrationally. Holden often says he doesn't do something simply because he didn't "Feel like it" ("I didn't answer him. I didn't feel like it.", "I started running. I don't know why-I guess I just felt like it") I think that another part of being an adult is not just doing things because you feel like it. As an adult, I think you become more responsible, and you do things because you have to; it's your responsibility. A big part of coming of age is taking on your responsibilities. So in this way, Holden IS a very immature sixteen year old. But are we supposed to expect people to be mature by a certain age? Is there a specific measurement of maturity to be had by a specidific age?  I people don't just turn sixteen or seventeen or eighteen and say "Alright! I'm an adult now, time to be mature!". Coming of age is a gradual process that happens at different times for everyone, and one shouldn't judge maturity by age. 

So maybe, judging things by who's older works in the elementary school playground, but as we get older, we become more mature (not all at once, at a certain age, like clockwork, but gradually) and understand that some people are more mature than others, regardless of age. Some people stop thinking like a first grader, and start taking on responsibilities. But I still haven't figured out what sparks this change. What makes us start to act more maturely? Granted, the older one gets, the more mature you seem to be, but  that's not always the case, as I've just explained. But what about getting older makes us more mature? Life experience? Tragedy? Exposure to the world?  And what about these things make some people mature more, or mature more quickly than others? Actually, how does one measure maturity at all? What exactly IS maturity? I hope that as Holden figures this out, so do we.