A Warning About the Eternal Man-Child: A Discussion on "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens" & "Peter and Wendy"

The lost boys, too, have become culturally important. Who are the boys, why are they lost, for what do they look and will they every find it?

I don’t know if I was the only one to read the Lost Boys as victims of abuse, but to me, I saw Peter Pan as an absolute villain, even if the neglect he experienced wasn’t his fault. The pains of our childhood are not our fault, but our response to them is our responsibility. To make it everyone else’s problem to deal with the fallout is not right.

The Lost Boys to me were victims of a narcissistic parent figure in the sense that Peter Pan was the Narcissistic leader, though not a parent. The boys are all looking for a safe place, a place where they are loved, nurtured, and cared for, and a place to grow; finding themselves lacking it, they clung to the closest thing they could find to a home.

The fact that the Lost Boys leave Neverland with Wendy, John, and Michael and all become functioning parts of society – more or less – tells me that they were able to heal and that they indeed found it. The lost boys are culturally important because many people have lost their parents, or have felt discarded by their parents. The Lost Boys has come to mean “Orphan”, but it can be extended, in a modern sense, to include those that feel they don’t belong.

Unfortunately, I think too many can claim to feel this way.

It took turning away from the past and moving to the future to heal. We see the Lost Boys grow and become men, and in contrast to this, we see Peter Pan stay in the past, and forever be unhealed. He makes it Wendy’s descendant’s problem to ‘mommy’ him.

This, to me, is a metaphor for passing abuse on from generation to generation because of not healing these childhood wounds. Peter Pan and Wendy are exact opposites, and neither is healthy: Peter Pan takes too much, and Wendy gives too much. It’s not balanced, and because Wendy allows it, her daughter sees no problem with it and continues this behaviour – on and on it goes, believing her job is to take care of his problems.  

The Lost Boys are only able to heal when they confront the problem and leave it in the past – turning their backs to the past, and moving forward with intention. The question of ‘if they’ll ever find it’ is a matter of making the conscious decision to grab it, which, in this case, they do.