Male Brain Only Fully Mature At 60

Melania Trump smiles near her young-at-heart spouse. Image by Getty Images

By Phoebe Maltz Bovy October 18, 2016

Every so often, those articles emerge declaring preposterously adult-sounding ages as the true cutoff for adulthood. The human brain is only really mature at 25, or maybe it’s 30 or 40.

It has recently emerged, thanks to the never-ending gift that is the 2016 U.S. presidential election cycle, that the true age for male adulthood is 60. Until a man reaches 60, he’s really more like a “teenager” or a “boy,” and we all know how boys are. We learned this from noted adult woman Melania Trump, who told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that her husband, Donald Trump, should be excused for having made sexist remarks on tape in 2005, because he was really more like a teenage boy. Cooper reminded Melania Trump, and the audience, that Donald was 59 at the time. “Correct,” she said, and why shouldn’t she? Much as 19 is the final year of teenage-hood for young women, 59 is that for young men. She’s just telling it like it is.

That’s where that sound byte comes from, where Melania refers to her son and husband as two children. It’s not a comparison. It’s not creepy. It’s science.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy edits the Sisterhood. Her book, The Perils of “Privilege”, will be published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2017.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a former editor of the Sisterhood blog at the Forward. Her writing has appeared in several publications, including The New Republic and The Atlantic. Her book, “The Perils of ‘Privilege,’” was published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2017. She has a PhD in French and French Studies from New York University, and has read a lot of 19th century French Jewish newspapers for a 21st century American.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO