The term Peter Pan Syndrome has been accepted in popular psychology (i.e., is used by both laypeople and, informally, by some psychology professionals) since the publication of a book by this title (The Peter Pan Syndrome: Men Who Have Never Grown Up) written by Dr. Dan Kiley and published in 1983. (Kiley also wrote a companion book, The Wendy Dilemma, published in 1984.)

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Sometimes I think this Peter Pan Syndrome is getting more and more prevalent. I think the reason for that is because people don't really have to grow up as quickly as they used to.

Hell, my generation has a new name which I heard on the news a couple months back. It's called "the Boomerang generation" because so many people move back in with their parents when they're through with college. Some people attribute this to the fact that college students have it better than ever, largely courtesy of their parents paying for everything (and this is true... I see it around me every day...) so they get accustomed to a lifestyle which they won't be able to provide for themselves when they get out into the real world and have to work. Therefore, they end up moving back home. There are more factors than that which cause people to move home, but I found it interesting that that one was mentioned in the newscast I saw.

When people do this moving back home thing, even if they're working, and all that, of course, then you get into the whole Failure to Launch thing, and I think that probably could be considered one aspect of this Peter Pan Syndrome.

I'm willing to admit it. My generation is spoiled, and that's what's causing the increase in these cases. When I think about the stories my dad told me about his days at the University of Florida, it's a completely different world than what most people who are in school today would tell you, and that is only one generation ago! In our parents' generation, I think my dad's experience with going away to college and moving out of the house was pretty much the norm. Nobody gave him any money. He wanted to go to Georgia Tech (which is why he's so proud of me for going there!) but NASA gave him a scholarship to Florida, so his parents said "that's where you're going. We're not paying for anything if someone else is willing to." They gave him only enough money for the gas to get to Gainesville from his home in Jacksonville, and all through college, he had to work at least 30 hours a week just to pay the bills, and of course, carry a full courseload as a Chemistry major in order to keep his scholarship. I hear stories like that from SOOOO many people in his generation. That leads me to believe that was the norm. There is no room for "I don't wanna grow up!" when it's really "put up or shut up" time when you're 18 years old (or 16 in my dad's case...) and going away to school. There was no room for Peter Pan Syndrome in that generation. Moving home was frowned upon, and downright shunned in some families. Parents weren't going to pay for "Luxury student living" just because their kid thought the dorm rooms were too small or whatever. And if you screwed up, you were gonna figure your own way out of it, and make it happen on your own because if your parents found out about it, your ass was pretty much gonna be grass.

Now, contrast that with the majority of today's generation who are in college currently. Now, granted, I'm a little old for an undergrad (running away to the Army after Freshman year will put you in that position...) so I have a bit of an outsider's view on today's undergrads. When I look around me, I see designer clothes, expensive gadgets, and man, does my old Pontiac Sunfire stick out like a sore thumb in a parking lot full of Lexuses and BMW's. "Student apartments" are nicer than the houses most of the people I know grew up in, and are sure as hell a lot nicer and about twice the size of the Army issued flat I live in. Oh, and no, these people don't share with a million roommates in a place that size like they would have just a few years ago. No, they are afforded their privacy, and what gets them that priviledge? Mommy and daddy's checkbook. They're not shy to admit it, either. Not one bit. All you have to do is ask one of these people how they manage to have all that they have without having a job, and they'll tell you their parents pay for 100% of it. This would not have happened a generation ago, and the fact that it's happening now is what's causing the prevalence of Peter Pan syndrome. Plain and simple, people are spoiled, and it is becoming the downfall of a generation.

Bottom line, parents used to push their kids out of the nest, metaphorically speaking, and it was up to them to either fly or fall. Even those who fell at first, and resisted growing up, eventually had to learn to fly. Those who didn't ever learn to fly were regarded as dysfunctional. Today, we don't have that taboo, and therefore, kids don't really have to learn to fly on their own. They know they have a safety net in the form of mommy and daddy, and some develop Peter Pan Syndrome because of it. I guess I'm lucky for the "tough love" approach my parents took with me... I originally wasn't going to get to go to Georgia Tech either... went to Florida just like dad. I couldn't afford the out of state tuition to Tech, and they sure as hell weren't going to pay it. I thought I should live alone, so I lived in a tiny 1 BR shithole, which was way too expensive, and worked 50 hours a week for the priviledge. I couldn't make it like that, so I joined the Army. That's what people do if they're pushed out of the proverbial nest... they find a way to fly. If people would go back to doing that, there would be less of this Peter Pan Syndrome, and there would be no Boomerang Generation. This is all a byproduct of the cushy American lifestyle we've come to enjoy over the past couple decades.

He's worth it.

EVERYTHING begins with a good de-pantsing! Sunny, June 20th '08

I wouldn't trust you to run a bath, let alone a fucking restaurant!!Gordon Ramsay, Kitchen Nightmares

Toronto boy, i'm going to do you a favor right now while i get a little aggression of out me. and i want you to read this very closely because it really matters and i've spent small amount of time on it, which, i may end up regretting, but nonetheless, you are very well deserving of it. and i'm going to post this here because i don't want the younger people who would not understand it to read this, and, perhaps relieve you of a what could be some embarrassment. and i also want to add that i'm going to private message you this post so you can have it in your records to read again, and again, as need be. perhaps you'll delete it? i really don't care. but believe me when i say this reply to you is as constructive of a criticism as i am capable of with you.

you've replied to my posts and my comments many times, and nearly everytime they've carried a slight insult in them. perhaps an inside joke tailored for your childish sense of humor to giggle at behind the safety of your monitor and thus make yourself better about yourself. i'd chosen to ignore most of your comments basically because i didn't find you worth my time, and i am nearly positive that because i have not replied to your comments, you find me as being "stuck up", much like the way you found Annie to be "stuck up and hypocritcal".

give me a minute to explain to you WHY you think annie, and probably a lot of members who've not been drawn to your "magnetic" persona, as you'd like to believe, are also considered "stuck up and hypocritical" in your book. stay with me, TorontoBoy. read these words slowly and carefully because they will help you discover more about why you are the way you are. don't turn away from it, please.

allow me to get the Obvious out of the way: you act like an asshole on this forum most of the time. i don't think you really are an asshole in real life. i mean, really, lord knows what youre like in real life. i'm not going to guess. i will remain within the realms of this forum and base my judgments purely on the comments that you've made to me and the few i've read that you've made to others.

you see, TorontoBoy, are you a creature whose had some hardships in his life. perhaps nothing terrible as in some form of cancer or being raised as an orphan. no, not that kind. what you've experienced could be in many ways worse than that, and in many ways better, but how you've processed these experiences is why you are the way you are: you are someone whose gone through a consistent string of social rejection, beit women or men. you have experienced enough rejection that your mind has subconsciouly built defensive walls to protect You from their judgment of You. and as these walls got thicker and thicker, so did your delusional sense of reality within the confines of these walls.

so instead out of reaching out in kindness like you used to do, you reach out in a neutral or negative way, hoping that the person you reach out to will offer their hand in kindness so You could feel as if you have some sort of advantage, some sense of protection from them. and perhaps every now and then, you find it within your heart to initiate in kindness and say something nice about someone. say Annie, for instance. but again, your kindness was not appreciated in the way you'd expected, so that person lurking behind those thick walls comes out again and lashes out, hoping for some type of salvation from that old familiar sting. so you call her "stuck up" and "hypocritcal" and, this is a funny one, "too short" in defense of your pride. but the truth, on the surface of all those walls that you've built between yourself and people, is that YOU seem stuck up and YOU seem hypocritcal. this is why you like to say "i'm just being real" or some other crap of that nature. the truth is you're NOT being real in the REAL sense of REALITY. YOU are the hypocrite because you cannot deal with the pain of not being accepted when your intentions were genuinley positive.

after enough time of living in this place you're in, one's world becomes so intertwined within this evolving and ancient logic that one twists the illogical into the logical that there seems to be no other way than the way you've known for so long.

i find it quite apt that i am writing this in a thread called "Peter Pan Syndrome", because although your comment was yet another sly attack on me, it makes me chuckle to think that if anyone is experiencing this Syndrome -- it is You.

feel special, Toronto Boy, 'cause i've never spent this much time replying to anyone.

i suppose so, but what's the alternative? guys who have killed off their inner child?