Peter Pan Syndrome.

An e-mail exchange with a friend has me ruminating on life-cycle stuff. We have been discussing how disconcerting it is to find ourselves post-30 and single, with no clear plan for marriage and/or kids, and to realize that while we are still floating along in the limbo of single early-adulthood, our parents are growing older, our grandparents are dying, and we're supposed to be moving into the stable-grownup generational box.

When my mother was the age I am now, she had been married for over a decade and had two children out of diapers. She had her own law practice, a beautiful house, and a happy marriage to my dad, who had recently left academia to become her law partner. They, in their early-to-mid 30s, were Grownups, living solid and stable but still-interesting lives.

Supposedly, 30 is the new 21. Yet I don't feel 21 -- I'm happier, more self-confident, more financially stable, smarter, skinnier, better traveled, less impulsive, and closer to blindness than I was back then. At the same time, while I don't particularly desire to dwell in a never-neverland of eternal youth, I'm not quite ready to be a Grownup, or to be responsible for the health, well-being, or livelihood of anyone other than myself (hell, I can barely keep plants alive). I still depend on my parents for a great deal of emotional support, and I'm not at all prepared to enter the life stage in which I might have to take care of them instead of vice versa.

I supposed I'm getting closer to that place. And regardless of whether I someday become a wife or a mother, I will have to accept the yoke of adulthood with all of its attendant privileges and responsibilities. The best I can hope for may be to retain my youthful good looks in the process. . . .

Comments

[Evan Bailyn]

While Peter Pan Syndrome can make a person feel alienated from the part of society that strictly abides by social norms, it is actually a gift. When you were younger, you probably promised yourself that you wouldn't ever act as stiff as an adult. Now, I think it is incumbenet on us to keep that promise to our younger selves.

I have a website dedicated to Peter Pan Syndrome: www.evanbailyn.com. I encourage you to read it and send me your thoughts and comments.