Growing Up By Gary Soto Summary

Maturity is the feeling of needing to prove that one is sophisticated and old enough to do certain things. In the short story “Growing Up,” Maria’s family went on a vacation while she stayed at home, but when she heard there was a car crash that happened near where her family was staying, she gets worried and thinks it is all her fault for trying to act mature and angering her father. Society wants to prove how mature they are and they do so by trying to do things that older people do and the symbols, conflict, and metaphors in the text support this theme.
First and foremost, in “Growing Up,” Gary Soto’s theme is how society acts older than they are and that they just want to prove they are mature. Maria wants to stay home instead of going

Soto states,“Maria took off her jeans and T-Shirt, and changed into a dress. She went through her mother’s closet to borrow a pair of shoes and drenched her wrists in Charlie perfume. She put on coral-pink lipstick and smudge of blue eye shadow. She felt beautiful, although a little self-conscious. She took off some of the lipstick and ran water over her wrists to dilute the fragrance.” Soto is referring to her wanting to feel all mature and grow up sooner than she wants to. When she dresses up and puts makeup and perfume on, he shows how she wants to act like a true teenager and dress up and go to the mall, and when she dulls the fragrance and rubs some makeup off, he shows that sometimes growing up is not what society thought it would be. She wants to act her age but is also self-conscious to not grow up to soon. Soto also says,“She locked herself in her bedroom and tried to read Seventeen.” Maria acts her age and reads what teenage girls read but on the inside, she doesn’t want to grow up. She wants to act like a teenager but doesn’t want to grow up. She knows that growing up isn’t all what it’s cut out to be and decides in the end that she wants to take her time in growing up and getting