We are all familiar with The Red Pill notion that "women don't mature past the age of 18" and "women are the most mature teenagers in the room". I've been thinking a lot about these things lately due to some TRP skeptics asking questions like "do you really believe women are immature?" These women want to be thought of as "mature" and are insulted by the thought of being anything otherwise. After all if you’re not "mature" you are lumped into the "little kids" category, and that's degrading. Or is it?

This illusive want for maturity always left me a little uneasy, because I felt like people were asking this question without even understanding what it means to be "mature". I asked myself what is "maturity", how does someone know if they have it, how does one gain it, and what is its function?

Then I came across this post:

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskMen/comments/1k0izp/what_is_it_like_for_a_man_to_have_to_hidesuppress/cbk64sr?context=3

After I read this, I realized something, being mature isn't a rite of passage, it's not something that happens to you as you get older, because you are older, but rather it's something you gain by being strong when you have to, because you have to. It's something that happens to you when you have to struggle against real adversity. But, I also realized it's not necessarily a thing worth striving for.

I composed a thought experiment about a fictitious child. This child is no older than 10 years old, but both his parents are dead. He has no access to health care, or any other federal aid, and he is the sole provider of his baby brother, who is only 2 years old and can't fend for himself. He does everything in his power to care for his brother, from begging, to digging through garbage, even giving his little brother food when it means skipping a meal himself. Even so his baby brother dies in his hands, either due to malnourishment, or disease, it's irrelevant, the little brother dies.

There is a reason why this fictitious story is sad, because it is forcing a child into a position of maturity, when he shouldn't have to be. A child assuming a real position that an adult would normally have to assume is a sad story because we want to hold onto that youth and innocence that the child possesses. We don't want to burden him with the "maturity of adulthood". This thought experiment made me realize that not only can lack of maturity be a good thing, it's actually a gift men give us. Men want to protect us from maturity, the same way society wants to protect that child from maturity.

As we all know, men have a naturally inclination to protect us. But, now I've realized that under that "umbrella of protection" men also protect us from the burden of having to be mature. Reading the post (above), I realized when a man chooses to be strong and push down his emotions, he does it so that we don't have to. When he becomes mature, jaded, and cynical, he does it so that we can maintain our innocence, youth, and liveliness. At the end of the day someone has to be able to step up and deal with it when shit really goes down, someone has to be able to put aside their fears and fight if need be. Men do this so that we don't have to. They are protecting us, and not because we are "the weaker sex", but because they don't want to have to burden us with that. That's what maturity actually is, it's a burden.

When we maintain our innocence, they feel like they've been successful because they've done their role "as men" to protect us. “Immaturity” isn’t an insult, it’s a gift. Men give us so much, and all they ask in return is that we respect them, and share that youthful vitality with them so that, once and a while, they can remember what it's like to be a kid too.