“Don’t we have fun? Haven’t I taught you to fight and to fly? What more is there?”
Saw Peter Pan last night. Very well done. The movie understood the tension between the child and adult worlds better than any version I’ve seen, and it even made me accept the business about needing to leave Neverland behind, which has always been a point of contention for me. And it understood that there’s more than one way of growing up, too, that one can do so badly or well.
Also, the pirate ship and dark castle and Peter’s forest home were all enough to keep any inner child happy.
Afterwards, those of us who went talked about the fact that adulthood was never the sort of prison for us that it is often portrayed at, in spite of the need for day jobs and housing and income: adulthood meant freedom; childhood was filled with rules and restrictions. I wonder how common this perspective really is, and whether it’s a relatively new thing. It does seem to me most kids want to grow up, for much the same reasons I wanted to grow up and am mostly glad that I have.