“All children, except one, grow up.” This is the way that J. M. Barrie begins the story of Peter Pan. First, there is the truth of the matter, the part about the way things really are; then there is the anomaly, and this defiance of regulation is so enchanting and absorbing that Wendy is sucked into Peter’s world. He is the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up – not because he could not, but because he refused to.
Peter Pan is the realization of a very real childhood fear: the fear of becoming older. This fear is what has drawn so many, both children and adults, to the character of Peter Pan. He has escaped from the natural order of things into a world in which he will never grow old.
Why is growing up so hard to come to terms with? Why is it terrifying? Perhaps the fear is similar to the fear of the dark: a fear of the unseen and unknown. As children, we do not know what will come when we are older. It is this unpredictability that makes us wish to stay children forever.
I remember thinking about growing up when I was very young – that is, before I was ten, at which point I was struck by the inevitability of it all. But before that I clung to the belief that, really, I would be young forever. There were the Big Kids, those around the age of fourteen or so, whose age I would reach someday and be truly ancient. Then there were the true grown-ups, adults like my parents, and I never really believed that I would be as old as them. It wasn’t just that I knew I would never catch up. It was just that I knew I would never reach their level of adultness. It was not unlikely, but impossible.
Reality is a hard thing when you are young. I remember the realization that I had to grow up, and it was such a hard, cold, unforgiving reality that it left me feeling rather tragic. Peter Pan tells Wendy why he ran away from the reality of growing up, confiding it like a secret yet proud of his own defiance. “It was because I heard father and mother talking about what I was to be when I became a man. I don’t want ever to be a man.”
And we never quite lose that feeling. We do grow up, because Peter never flies in our bedroom window to ask us to come away, but we always retain a memory of the growing-up fear, and we can never quite escape the feeling that growing up is rather uncomfortable. As adults we watch children play and envy them. We envy their innocence, their easy belief, their relative freedom from worry. Their lot seems so simple. They have nothing to fear but the awful truth that they will not always be young.
Among the drawings of J. R. R. Tolkien is a somewhat abstract sketch titled “Grownupishness.” The face in the drawing makes the image almost disturbing – it is the grotesque visage of an old man, and the exclamation points and question marks drawn above his head only enhance the sense of agitation. Beneath the drawing are written a few choice descriptions: sightless, blind, well-wrapped-up. Being grown up appears to be a very grim thing indeed.
Is that what we are when we become adults? Are we sightless and blind because we no longer see the world with the same sense of wonder that we once had? Are we endlessly trying to appear “well-wrapped-up,” while inwardly we are filled with exclamation points and question marks? Perhaps we are the foolish ones. Perhaps Peter Pan had the right idea. Perhaps we have lost something invaluable which we can never regain.
But let us return to Peter’s story. It concludes as he returns for Wendy, but she refuses to fly away with him. “I am old, Peter,” she says. “I am ever so much more than twenty.” She cries as she explains to him the way of things – not for herself, but for him. Peter’s story does not leave us mourning for childhood lost, but mourning for Peter. He has trapped himself in a fear that he will never escape, a fear which keeps him frozen in youthfulness. The Neverland is not quite the beautiful, idyllic island that it seems. The grimness of it is found in the gloomy corners of “never.”
We are never given the choice that is offered to Wendy – we must always grow up, whether we want to or not. We will always be afraid, whether or not the fear is admitted. We try to ease ourselves into adulthood through our teenage years. Even so, growing up is difficult. It is never painless. We must simply endure the pain, knowing that Peter’s alternative, though tempting, is the worse fate. To never grow up is to be trapped inside the cold emptiness of Never.
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