Peter Pan syndrome describes one's inability to believe they are of an older age and/or to engage in behaviour usually associated with adulthood. The term comes from the fictional children's character Peter Pan, who never ages. While it is more commonly attributed to men, it can affect women as well. The concept gained popularity through Dr. Dan Kiley in his book The Peter Pan Syndrome: Men Who Have Never Grown Up first published in 1983. His book became an international best seller and led to a wave of copycat pop-psychology books. Dr. Kiley got the idea for "The Peter Pan Syndrome" after noticing that, like the famous character in the J. M. Barrie play, many of the troubled teenage boys he treated had problems growing up and accepting adult responsibilities. This trouble continued on into adulthood. While transageism, or adults regarding themselves as juveniles or adolescents is not listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association as a specific mental disorder, the concept is modelled on transgenderism. This transageist concept has garnered a great deal of controversy. Neither transageism or Peter Pan Syndrome are recognized by the World Health Organization. And though similarly presented, there are distinct differences between Peter Pan syndrome and puer aeternus. People who exhibit characteristics associated with the Peter Pan syndrome are sometimes referred to as Peter Panners. Humbelina Robles Ortega, a professor of Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatment at Universidad de Granada, links the syndrome with overprotective parents and the lack of life skills which create anxiety in adulthood.
Examples
An example of the Peter Pan syndrome is used in Aldous Huxley's 1962 novel Island, in which one of the characters talks about male "dangerous delinquents" and "power-loving troublemakers" who are "Peter Pans." These types of males were "boys who can't read, won't learn, don't get on with anyone, and finally turn to the more violent forms of delinquency." He uses Adolf Hitler as an archetype of this phenomenon: A prominent example of a celebrity with Peter Pan syndrome is alleged to be Michael Jackson, who said, "I am Peter Pan in my heart." Jackson named the Los Olivos, California property, where he lived from 1988 to 2005, Neverland Ranch after Neverland, the fantasy island on which Peter Pan lives. He said that it was his way of claiming a childhood he never had, having started early as a performing artist with his family. He had built there numerous statues of children, a floral clock, a petting zoo, a movie theater, and a private amusement park containing cotton candy stands, two railroads, a Ferris wheel, carousel, Zipper, Octopus, Pirate Ship, Wave Swinger, Super Slide, roller coaster, go-karts, bumper cars, a tipi village, and an amusement arcade. As The New York Daily Newsstaff writer, Carrie Milago, reported on 26 June 2009: "On Jackson's dime, thousands of schoolchildren visited over the years, from local kids to sick youngsters from far away." Visitors "often recalled it as dreamlike", she observed. A preschool teacher visiting the site told USA Today in 2003, Neverland "smells like cinnamon rolls, vanilla and candy and sounds like children laughing". A longitudinal study published in 2010 of Navajo adolescent mothers' intimate partner relationships identified reoccurring themes: limited support, substance abuse, infidelity, and domestic violence. One participant verbally equated all the men she had been involved with as having Peter Pan Syndrome, "...they don't want to grow up. They drink too much, they don't work, and they're just not emotionally available."
