Peter Pan Syndrome and How It Affects People’s Lives
Michael Jackson has been one of the most famous Peter Pans
Peter Pan Syndrome is a term that is used to describe an adult male or female who is socially immature. However, the syndrome is not an officially recognized mental health condition, so it is impossible to get officially diagnosed with it.
One of the common traits of people with Peter Pan Syndrome is that they don’t want to take responsibilities and make commitments. For example, they can pile up the dishes in the sink or they might avoid doing laundry until they have nothing clean to wear. They tend also to spend money unwisely and make other foolish decisions. Peter Panners also struggle with work and with making long-term career goals — they are not interested in being promoted and might take only part-time jobs just to get something for a living. In other words — they prefer just “live for today” and not to think about tomorrow. When it comes to character traits, some people with Peter Pan Syndrome may also have some Nartissic character traits as well, for example, they may lack empathy and devaluate others, but that is rather an exception than a rule.
On the other hand, people with Peter Pan Syndrome might have different unrealistic goals, such as becoming a world-class athlete or a famous writer, but they usually don’t do anything to achieve that. When it comes to behavior, they have a tendency to make excuses and blame others, and they can get emotional outbursts when facing stress, and they have unrealistic expectations of others taking care of them. They also struggle to make choices and to take responsibilities — they tend to keep their options open for as long as possible instead of making concrete plans and sticking to them.
One of the real-world examples of people who had this syndrome is, of course, well-known pop singer Michel Jackson. He achieved success and popularity as a singer and had his own music band, “Jackson 5”, even before high school age, but that had its own cost.
According to research, people with Peter Pan Syndrome had either very protective or very permissive parents. Michael Jackson had a very strict and even abusive father, who pushed him and his siblings to practice singing and playing instruments for several hours every day, no matter if they wanted to or not, as soon as he recognized their extraordinary music talent for the first time.
That was one of the reasons, Michael Jackson was usually isolated from kids of his age, and that has had, of course, a great impact on his whole life.
Michael Jackson was obsessed with the idea of never growing up and he never had adult friends. He believed that children were special in the ways they viewed the world, and he didn’t want to lose that in himself.
In one of the interviews, Michael Jackson admitted himself having Peter Pan Syndrome, saying “I am Peter Pan in my heart”. He also added that he had never had a chance to do all the fun things kids do.
When he became an adult and already had a successful career he even did plastic surgery on his nose to look more like a fictional Peter Pan character. Another thing that he did, is that he has named his huge property in California “Neverland Ranch”, after the island, where Peter Pan lived. Michael Jackson loved children from the bottom of his heart and wanted to give them “everything he missed in his childhood”, that’s why “Neverland Ranch” was always open for kids and it was a dream place for many of them because it was full of toys, games, and sweets.
In conclusion, I can say that Peter Panners seems to be open-minded and easy-going people, who prefer to enjoy their life “today and now”. They may be scared of growing up and taking responsibilities, but choose to stay creative in the full meaning of this world. I think that being a creative person is always a good thing, but not everyone is able to live with a creative soul and a rational mind. I’d like to finish this article with one of Pablo Picasso’s most famous quotes which I suppose fits this topic well:
Each child is an artist. The question is whether you can continue to maintain the artist’s spirituality after you grow up.
