This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human.
I'm Michelle McPhee, and I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported on.
A Mormon polygamist and an Armenian businessman.
Multi-million dollar house, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets.
A billion dollar fraud.
But how long can this alliance last?
Tell me what you know.
Is somebody coming after me?
Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged.
It's the enhanced games.
Some call it grotesque.
Others say it's unleashing human potential.
Either way.
The podcast Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year.
Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds.
I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth.
Listen to Superhuman on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, what's good, y'all?
You're listening to Learn the Hard Way with your favorite therapist and host, Keir Gaines.
This space is about Black men's experiences having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing.
How many men carry a suit of armor.
It signals to the world that you not to be played with and just because you have the capability, that does not mean that you need to listen to learn the hard way on the iHeartRadio app, apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.
Therapy is fantastic but once again, it does not have a monopoly on healing.
That's why I create the resources and that's why I create the community, because I really just want you to have more access.
On the podcast Cultivating Her Space.
Dr Dom and Terry Lomax create a space where Black women can show up fully and be heard.
It's tough. because we're suppressing our emotions.
And so many of us are like high achieving individuals.
Listen to Cultivating Her Space on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Your husband is not who you think he is.
Your body is not what you thought it was.
Your identity is formed by a secret history.
I'm Dani Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets.
He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move.
And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off.
And that was the last time I saw him.
Listen to Season 14 of Family Secrets on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hello everybody, I'm Gemma Spike and welcome back to The Psychology of Your 20s, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology.
Hello everybody, welcome back to the show, welcome back to the podcast.
It is so great to have you here back for another episode, as we, of course, break down the psychology of your 20s, psychology of our 20s, psychology of my 20s.
You guys have no idea how long I've wanted to do this episode for.
Literally...
This has been on my list for, I would say, three years.
And I just never got around to it.
I don't know why.
Probably because I was like waiting for this very moment to do an episode on it.
We're talking about a really cool concept today a little known phenomenon called Peter Pan Syndrome.
Let me start this episode with a question.
Have you ever met somebody who just has no desire to grow up, who just wants to have fun all the time seems almost like allergic to responsibility or ever getting serious about a job or or relationship.
Who maybe, is like obsessed with reliving things you did in high school as kids, reliving your uni days, despite those times being well and truly done?
Do you know this person?
Have you met somebody like this?
This is a Peter Pan.
This is Peter Pan syndrome to a T. A pathological fear of growing up.
Not growing older, that's part of it but growing up and leaving the spontaneity, the fun, the ease, the lack of responsibility behind.
This is far more common than you may think.
But because it's kind of hidden behind nostalgia or like somebody just trying to figure out their choices, or somebody who is enabled by their parents, by their partners, by their friends.
Not a lot of people talk about it.
What's sad though, is the damage that Peter Pan syndrome does, not only to the person who is going through it and who suddenly is going to look around one day and realize that everybody else grew up but them, but also the people around them who so deeply want this person to become an adult and show some like gusto for life, that they become more and more frustrated from trying and feel more and more kind of despondent.
So this is what we're going to talk about today.
If you haven't heard about it before, the psychology of Peter Pan syndrome.
Why some people want to stay childlike or young forever.
The corresponding Wendy syndrome that we see a lot in women who date Peter Pan's.
How you can be friends with this person, how you can be the partner of this person, the sibling of this person, and how much you can actually do for them.
Like, can you force somebody like this to change?
There is a lot to discuss, a lot to break down.
It's just a fascinating episode in general.
So let's get into it.
So what is Peter Pan syndrome?
Where did it get its name?
Where did it come from?
I think a lot of us, not we all, a lot of us are familiar with the story of Peter Pan.
It's like a classic childhood fairy tale, folk story.
I think maybe you would call it a fairy tale, but for some revision, Peter lives on like mysterious faraway island of Neverland.
He has this troop of forever children called the Lost Boys.
They get up to all kinds of adventures.
Nothing is very difficult.
They have a nemesis, which is Captain Cook, but he's not really a threat.
He doesn't really ever do anything to them.
And Life is just very easy and there's no responsibilities.
There's none of like the drudgery of adult life.
It's all very fun.
They have these adventures and it's seemingly the fantasy of many, many people never having to grow up and face chores and work and complex relationships, getting to be young forever.
This is the very famous story. from which Peter Pan syndrome emerged.
Peter Pan.
The syndrome was first coined in the 80s by a psychologist called Dr Dan Kiley in his book The Peter Pan Syndrome Men Who Have Never Grown Up.
And he came up with the term because he kept encountering a lot of men, a lot of like older teenage boys, but mainly men, who kept having all these problems with adjusting to the real world.
They really struggled getting girlfriends or partners.
They had trouble with their jobs.
And he really believed that a lot of this derived from their fear of growing up and of being responsible.
It's not an official psychological diagnosis, but the term Peter Pan syndrome gained so much popularity after his book was first published because it was kind of the first time that anybody had dissected this particular set of behaviors and patterns.
And a lot of people saw their partners, saw their sons, saw themselves painfully in that description.
And I think on some level, we all can kind of relate.
None of us particularly enjoy paying bills.
None of us particularly enjoy doing chores.
Let's be real.
Sometimes adulthood feels like just doing the same things over and over again to stay alive.
A lot of things that aren't a lot of fun.
But here's the distinction.
Those with Peter Pan syndrome often exhibit those same tendencies and behaviors and annoyances with adulthood on a pathological level.
They cannot commit to a relationship, but they also really have no desire to work.
And they also just want to have fun all the time.
And they also seem pained by the idea of doing chores, keeping a schedule, getting a driver's license, that sort of thing.
People with the same syndrome can seem quite helpless as well.
Those around them might have the general impression that this person just can't get it all together.
And as we said, it brings a lot of frustration.
They might be prone to emotional outbursts when they are asked to do things that a normal adult would do.
Or when they face stressful situations, they make a lot of excuses.
They blame others for why it went wrong, why they can't do it.
They find criticism difficult.
They find people saying no difficult.
More broadly, They just have no desire or interest in personal growth or making solid long-term plans.
They want to keep their options open.
They want to have fun.
They want to be spontaneous.
And they can also really rely on a lot of self-destructive behaviors, engaging in things like substance abuse, addictive patterns, all with the goal of escaping from and suppressing the difficult feelings that come with growing up.
They want to avoid that as much as possible through whatever means.
It can happen in women, but there's a lot less accounts.
I think there's very few accounts of it happening, probably because of how women are socialized to take on responsibility from a young age, in the home, in classrooms, in social groups.
So why does this actually develop in a lot of not a lot, but why does it end up developing in young guys and in men?
Firstly, we need to examine the role of the parent.
I feel like parents kind of get blamed for everything, but this is a case where it might be a little bit fair.
Even if their intentions were pure, a lot of it does begin with how – and I will say men and women, but how particularly – a young guy was like raised.
There's this woman, Humbalina Robles-Ortega.
She is a professor at the University of Granada and she's an expert on this.
She's an expert on emotional disorders, on parenting, and she basically claims that overprotective parents are a massive contributor.
They think they're protecting their child by limiting their independence, by always driving them everywhere, by helping them with their homework, cooking all their meals, choosing their major, not letting them get a job.
But it can leave their children ill-equipped to deal with adult life.
Again, they think they're doing what's best, but the child never gets the necessary skills to confront things that we all kind of have to go through as an adult, including painful things like heartbreak and scary situations and discomfort.
There's one longitudinal study from 2023 that examined the impact of having overprotective parents in thousands of children in the Netherlands.
And children who had these kinds of parents were more antisocial.
They had lower levels of academic achievement, poorer coping strategies, even when the parents themselves were didn't think that they were being overprotective.
Now, as an adult, if you have grown up in that environment, you've never adjusted.
So they still may feel or feel the need to be physically and financially taken care of by their parents.
They kind of take the system For granted.
And you know what?
If it was me, I would probably do that.
I wish my parents paid all my bills.
I wish...
They took care of everything.
Of course, somebody who's always had this handed to them is going to continue that way because not doing it is so painful, but it doesn't exactly set them up well.
Now there's a difference between an overprotective parent, like the ones we spoke about, and a permissive parent, and permissive parents may be even worse.
Overprotective parents will still say no if it is in their child's best interest.
Permissive parents won't.
Peter Pan syndrome. can emerge because of permissive parenting, because children or this child has zero boundaries, zero restrictions on their behavior, zero punishments for following impulses that lead to poor decisions. everything is done in permissive parenting to keep the child happy now this happens for a few reasons the parent themselves may have had like just a really harsh upbringing so they go too far in the opposite direction kind of a form of like it's a form of overcorrection they may also just struggle with conflict and feeling guilty in their own relationships including their relationship with their child, even though they obviously have authority and they should do what's best.
Like the child can be unhappy.
It doesn't matter if it means they're safe and learning.
That's a good thing, but they want to be loved.
They want to be seen as a nice or a good parent.
That's what causes this.
And sometimes permissive parenting can just be straight up neglect.
Like there's no boundaries because the parent doesn't care enough to set them.
There is an entire Reddit thread about people's experiences with permissive parenting.
That, And it goes into so much detail on the ways that this experience, whilst probably a lot of fun in childhood, can really mess you up as an adult because you don't learn rules.
You don't learn what it means to be told no.
And if you only ever experience that as an adult, it's going to be really annoying and it's going to seem horrible, really unfair.
Moreover, permissive parents often not the neglectful kind, but the I want you to love me all the time kind.
They often take the blame for their children's wrongdoings, meaning their child never learns that actions have consequences, which is another important feature of growing up.
I had a friend like this in school, whose mom would just swoop in with an excuse for any wrongdoing and who was kind of like a mama bear figure.
Which power to her.
But she didn't do her daughter any favors because her daughter just got her way with everything and therefore learned that she could do anything.
I want to say, like I'm not a parent.
I can't judge.
And I can imagine it must be really, really hard to figure out what the right thing is for your child, especially if you had a really difficult upbringing.
But these behaviors are, they're just frankly, a big contributor to Peter Pan syndrome, as we see it in the research.
Now, another contributor beyond parenting is and that kind of relationship is fears about one's own competence.
Even somebody who had the most perfectly balanced and supportive parents, who also set boundaries, may still develop Peter Pan syndrome, because they are subconsciously unconsciously, afraid that they are not very good at being an adult and that they will fail.
Being just a person who is alive nowadays comes with a lot of expectation, right?
A lot of comparison.
And life is just really hard.
Like it's harder to get a job.
It's harder to be paid well.
It's harder to be seen as competent, harder to make a mark, harder to dream big, harder to do all the things that our parents did at our age.
And sometimes the psychological solution to that, when we feel like that failure is all us, is avoidance.
If I never try, I didn't fail because I wasn't capable.
I failed because I wanted to.
Failing was my decision because I chose not to give it a go.
That's kind of the situation that they end up in.
I'm not going to be a bad adult if I never try. force myself to act like an adult.
A lot of people with Peter Pan syndrome are deeply insecure.
They're anxious, they're perfectionists and they're kind of just scared that they won't be able to adapt or be the person that they want to be.
So they mask it with this more socially acceptable facade of like, I'm just living in the moment.
I'm just enjoying my youth.
I'm just having fun.
When really what's going on is like a deep existential fear. of not feeling capable.
Of course, speaking of existential fears, the fear of growing up is also deeply correlated to the fear of aging.
And I feel like a lot of us can relate to the birthday panic.
Like when we were kids, we were so excited to get older.
And then now it's like every birthday just feels like you're closer to dying.
And that's not a great feeling.
It's easy to see why creating a psychological fantasy land of like eternal youth is attractive.
After all, like society, is very obsessed with youthfulness and young bodies and capable young bodies and the attractiveness of being young.
When somebody lives in a fantasy land where they never have to grow up, They feel safe from what aging means.
They feel safe in the delusion of being youthful, energetic, carefree.
And if they can't actually freeze themselves at an age, they can freeze their behavior at an age.
Research from the 1980s which analyzed, I think, 1200 retired adults in the US, found that this fear of aging is really just the fear of the unknown.
When someone has Peter Pan syndrome, They are gravitating towards the known.
Being a child who doesn't have to assume any responsibility, for whom life is always explained and taken care of.
For them, that is a known
And that is not as frightening as the unknowns of adulthood and the unknowns of getting older that we're facing right now.
To clarify, I will say, this doesn't mean like you can't be playful and young and joyful.
Like you are still allowed to even be childlike at some points and like to be a little bit silly.
You know me, you guys have probably listened to episodes where I've just gone on and on about the importance of play psychologically and mentally and emotionally.
So we're not just like throwing all that out and saying grow up or else.
However, when this bleeds into pathological childlike behaviors and irresponsibility, that is Peter Pan syndrome.
That is not just having fun and being light and joyful about life.
This is somebody who is paralyzed by the idea of growing up.
And that has consequences for dating, for friendship, for their financial situation, for their career, which we are going to discuss after this short break, as well as how to deal with somebody like this.
Stay with us.
Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged.
It's the enhanced games.
Some call it grotesque.
Others say it's unleashing human potential.
Either way.
The podcast Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year.
Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds.
I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth.
Listen to Superhuman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect.
We were God's chosen kingdom on earth.
He felt destined for greatness.
So when a swaggering Armenian businessman catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back.
Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets.
Meeting the president of Turkey.
I'm Michelle McPhee and this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracies I've ever come across.
When Jacob met LeVon, this went to a billion dollar fraud.
But with two kings from entirely different worlds, just how long can their empire survive?
The largest tax investigation in American history.
You need to tell me what you know.
Is somebody coming after me?
Jacob told LeVon, you're ruining my life.
Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome to my new podcast.
Learn the Hard Way with me, your host and your favorite therapist, Keir Gaines.
And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests.
I'm talking Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark.
Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing.
We get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing.
And we're still chasing it.
And we don't know when we've done enough.
Because people scoreboard watch.
Life becomes about wins and losses.
Steve Burns, Dustin Ross.
Because you find it important to be a good person while you're here on earth?
Or are you a good person because you're afraid?
Because that's two different intentions, bro.
Absolutely.
And that's two different levels of trust.
I want you to just really be a good person.
Join me, Keir Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing growth, fatherhood pressure and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way.
Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Learn the Hard Way, and listen now.
The story I've told myself about love or relationships can then shape my behavior, and that can lead me to sabotage the possibility of connection.
This Mental Health Awareness Month, tune into the podcast Deeply Well with Debbie Brown and explore the journey of healing, self-discovery and returning to yourself.
We explore higher consciousness, emotional well-being and the practices that help you find clarity, peace and self-mastery in a world that can feel overwhelming.
The world is becoming lonelier.
We're not becoming more social and connected.
We're becoming more individualized, but we actually need people in connection.
If you've been searching for a soft place to land while doing the work to become whole, Listen to Deeply Well, with Debbie Brown from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're watching the latest season of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, you already know there's a lot to break down.
Portia accusing Kelly of sleeping with a married man.
They holding K. Michelle back from fighting Drew.
Pinky has financial issues.
I like the bougie style of Housewives show.
I think it looks like it's gonna be interesting.
On the podcast Reality with the King I Carlos King, recap the biggest moments from your favorite reality shows, including the Real Housewives franchise, the drama, the alliances and the tea everybody's talking about.
As an executive producer in reality television, I'm not just watching it.
I understand the game.
As somebody who creates shows, I'll even say this.
At the end of the day, when people are at home, they want entertainment.
To hear this and more, listen to Reality with the King on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
You know what's sad?
What I think is sad is when somebody has Peter Pan syndrome, like obviously they get a really bad rap but they miss out on the full range of emotions and experiences that life has to offer as we get older.
Like the richness of growing up by remaining in like this childlike emotional and behavioral state the Peter Pan's of the world miss out on.
Like the immense satisfaction that comes with knowing you can rely on yourself and knowing that, like you built this, you made this, you're responsible for the success in your life.
They also miss out on the feeling of knowing that others can depend on them and that they can show up emotionally physically, maybe even financially for their friends.
Think of it this way like when you are experiencing a crisis, You're not gonna call your Peter Pan friend.
You're not gonna call your friend who has no sense of adult responsibility.
That's unfortunate for you because you miss out on another support network, right?
It's also responsible a bit for the PETA because I think it's a true privilege.
It is.
It's a privilege.
It's a joy.
It's a gift getting to support others and getting to help people through hard things and have that mutual sense of help and love and connection.
It can be really frustrating to be around these people because you're moving forward.
You've got ambitions.
You've got plans.
And they're staying still.
They're not keeping up with the progress of life.
Perhaps whilst you are listening to this, probably thought of somebody, right?
If you've made it this far, you've got somebody in mind who fits the criteria for a PETA, I would assume.
A sibling, a romantic partner, a friend, a colleague, maybe somebody you just met in passing.
And being around them is hard.
It's just hard.
I had a roommate like this and I actually ran into him recently, like last week.
And five years on, he hasn't changed.
And I remember hearing this term for the first time when we were living together and being like bingo, like that is him, that describes his behavior to a T.
And seeing him five years later and being like oh my God, you're still the same, was like quite shocking.
Perhaps the reason I wanted to do this episode.
And the thing is, it's very easy to be resentful of Peters especially if you're close to them because they fail to assume responsibility for their own actions.
And that's hard.
It's hard to be around somebody who like, can't do simple things like take the bins out or wash the dishes, or show up on time or commit.
And it can be really pronounced if this person is a sibling.
And you see how they've been treated differently because of their behaviors, or maybe even in ways that contribute to their behaviors.
Like a really common example and something I'm sure many of you can relate to is like having a brother.
You being a woman, you being a sister and having a brother.
And you can see how much is not asked of them and how much is asked of them.
Of you, like you have to have it all together.
They get away with murder.
And there's always an excuse as to why they can't step up, why they can't assume responsibilities for the things that you, as a sister do, or maybe you as a brother, or just like anybody, like you have to grow up and they don't.
Study after study shows that this dynamic in particular is like a recipe for resentment.
It's resentment for literally everybody involved, right?
Because the sibling resents the other sibling, who resents the parents, who resents that sibling, who resents their parents.
And like it's just this triangular motion where, like everybody feels like they're hard done by and nobody wants to take responsibility and nobody well, particularly the PETA doesn't want to change.
It's also hard because in those situations, if you are the sibling you probably want to be like, can't you see how this has hurt me and how this has influenced me as an individual?
And they're probably not going to listen because there's a lot of ego involved in recognizing that you are somebody who has Peter Pan syndrome or, As a parent, recognizing that you are somebody who's contributed.
So I think siblings of Peter's get a hard rap because they just kind of have to stay silent and accept that they're never going to be, and never have been treated the same way.
Trying to help somebody with Peter Pan syndrome get moving or reach the level that you think they're capable of can also make you feel like a nag and it can make them feel really like patronized and it becomes highly personal very quickly.
It's not a happy situation for anyone.
Definitely hard when they're a family member, very complex when they're somebody you're dating whole different story dating, naturally.
You guys know this.
Like I don't want to sound like I'm like mansplaining this, even though I'm a woman, but you know what I mean.
Like I don't want to sound like, but you know it's.
It involves balance.
Like yeah, you've got to accept your partner's quirks and idiosyncrasies and you want to encourage each other to be the best version of themselves, but But you also want to be able to rely on them.
And if you have this recurrent feeling that your partner just like can't seem to grow up, or a general feeling that they probably couldn't handle life on their own, that can really leave you questioning, like
Is this relationship worth it?
In a relationship setting, you probably notice it more.
They neglect their personal hygiene.
They avoid any kind of chore.
They don't really do anything around the house.
They don't really do anything for their life.
You might constantly be like, come on, don't you have ambitions?
Don't you want to do things?
They might let you plan everything.
They let you make big decisions.
They also generally just like, don't want to maybe go that extra mile in terms of being more committed, moving in with each other or getting engaged or thinking about the future.
And that takes its toll.
But we know about the labor load, where the person who does more chores around the house often feels more exhausted and resentful.
But the mental load of just having to think about what needs to get done has the same effect.
And the mental load is probably a lot more significant if you are the partner of somebody who is a Peter.
In the long term.
It's hard to be with somebody when, every time you bring up a plan for the future, there's nothing.
It's hard to imagine a future with somebody who can't even take care of themselves.
Imagine having kids with a Peter.
Imagine trying to get a home loan.
Imagine when things get really tough.
Will they bolt because they can't cope with people relying on them?
Will they just go and hang out with their buddies?
And how do you know that by being patient, you're not just enabling them?
Especially if they do have other things going on.
Like they might have ADHD.
They might have been through a really tough childhood.
They might just be overwhelmed.
Like it's a hard freaking line to walk.
This is where we need to talk about Wendy syndrome, which is the companion to Peter Pan syndrome.
Peter Pan syndrome, again, normally a man doesn't want to grow up.
He wants to be a boy forever, constantly reliving the glory days of his teenage years, where he had fun and he never had to be an adult and there was no responsibility.
Wendy, named after Wendy Darling, who was another character in Peter Pan.
Wendy Syndrome describes the woman or the women who enable those men, who enable their boyfriends sons friends, to be that way, without even realizing it.
Wendy is empathetic.
She is nurturing.
She picks up after Peter.
She makes excuses for Peter.
She often takes on a motherly role with Peter.
She's trying her best to protect her Peter because she thinks, much like the parent, that she is helping him.
It's not helping.
It's keeping them in this dependent state, where oftentimes they've just found somebody to replace their mother and they get the benefit of a romantic partner.
There's no incentive to change there.
They get the best of both worlds.
The thing is.
A study from the University of Granada in Spain from 2007 found that Peter Pan types tend to gravitate towards the Wendy Harper type and vice versa, because
You know, Peters are often charismatic in their chaos.
They're often quite enjoyable to be around.
And a Wendy often really wants to be in service to somebody else.
So at first it's like this perfect...
Match made in heaven because each person feels like they're getting something.
But over time Wendy just makes it easier for Peter to never grow up, even as she believes she is helping him to grow up.
And this eventually becomes exhausting.
Like the person with Wendy syndrome will eventually realize that Peter isn't going to change.
And they begin to feel taken advantage of, even though the behaviors have probably been the same from the beginning.
The person with Peter Pan syndrome, also we can't forget them.
And you also start to feel like, why am I being lectured?
Why am I being dominated?
Why am I being forced to do things I don't want to do?
Why is this person so demanding?
And so this is often how this relationship ends.
Wendy burns out, Peter sulks, and the relationship ultimately fails.
But for the PETA, the cycle continues with somebody else.
Again, remember this is somebody who doesn't want to be an adult, so who doesn't want the responsibility of a committed relationship.
So it's very easy for them to jump into another non-committal relationship which is very fun and freeing and teenage-like.
And it's very likely that that person they jump into the next relationship with will probably be very much like the same Wendy character they found themselves with before.
So, if this sounds eerily like your situation as a sibling, as a friend, as a partner, do you correct the behavior?
What do you do?
It's a hard question, but I don't think it's your job to fix somebody with Peter Pan syndrome, particularly if you recognize the traits of Wendy's syndrome in yourself, either as a partner or a friend or somebody else, because you will just find yourself most likely in this situation of differing interests, differing desires, differing goals and sadness.
You also cannot shame somebody into changing because that builds we know this resentment long term.
It's just a really sad reality we see time and time again in like human behavior, but like people do not change for others, they change for themselves.
This is like the classic theory of intrinsic motivation.
The strongest form of motivation is what comes from within.
External motivation somebody else telling you to do something, somebody else telling you to change just cannot be sustained, no matter what people say.
It doesn't work.
So what do you do?
Well, you have to stop doing the things that have made their behavior and patterns easy for them.
You stop taking over the responsibilities.
You stop doing the adult things for them.
And maybe you remove yourself and show them like hey, if you want an adult relationship or an adult friendship or a roommate relationship, even we both need to be displaying adult behaviors, and you're not.
You have to make the option of being a PETA difficult for them.
I remember and this is going to sound so cooked, but when I had that roommate who was definitely a Peter bless his soul but also bless us for dealing with him he wouldn't wash any of his plates dishes cups, anything.
And so it got to a point where they had mold in them.
And so anytime I needed to use one...
I would wash it.
I would use it.
I would wash it again.
And I would store it in a box in my room so that only I could use it.
Until he literally ran out of clean stuff to drink from.
And he had to sheepishly be like, hey, where are all our plates and cups?
Was it mature?
Probably not.
But did it remove the ease at which he could literally live like a pig and remain childlike and dependent on us, his female roommates?
We were his mother?
Yes.
And his behavior did change.
It felt weird, but it was kind of like, what else do we have to do?
We can't just scold him.
The only way to help a Peter is to make them want to help or change themselves, or to leave them to see out their prior decision of remaining childlike And let them see the consequence of that.
You can't show the consequence only through words.
It needs to be through change or actions.
Now obviously, if their fear of growing up is derived from anxiety around aging, not being good enough, feeling like a failure, encourage them, show them support, talk them through what they see as the worst case scenario and the other possible outcomes like let's not conflate like depression or a real mental health struggle with being a peter.
Like, some people are struggling with responsibilities because they're in a really tough and dark and hard place.
Hence why they struggle to leave the house, hence why they feel no sense of ambition or ability to be a committed partner or to show up.
But the biggest way to differentiate that like is this person seriously depressed or are they a PETA?
Is that PETAs are otherwise quite active in ways that suit them, just not in ways that would force them to grow up.
Like they have no issue going out with friends, no issue working on like say, their physique, no issue holidaying, that sort of thing.
They don't seem bothered or even sad by their lack of progress.
They don't seem despondent.
They would be happy to continue the way they are.
This is what they've chosen.
They want to be in this state.
Depressed people obviously don't want to continue the way they are.
They don't seem to be enjoying themselves, which sounds like the most obvious statement in the world, but I think it's important to clarify that there is a distinction, that there is somebody who is depressed and there's somebody who is a Peter.
Let's not get them confused.
Also, somebody who is young and like, financially insecure and a little bit directionless is also again, not necessarily somebody with Peter Pan syndrome.
Somebody with Peter Pan syndrome wants to remain where they are.
They have an aversion to growing up.
Somebody who's just like young and figuring things out would take the opportunity to change if it was presented to them.
The Peter Pan. wouldn't.
So let's finish up with this.
Do people ever grow out of this?
Is there hope for these individuals?
The answer is yes, they do.
People do grow out of this.
There's been studies that show There's often a social turning point for the people who do change especially around when their friends or the people they know start getting married, start having families of their own.
And their social circle kind of shrinks and it means that the other side of things start to seem more desirable.
Whether that happens at 27 or 35 or 40, who knows?
But there's been additional work showing that when people realize that adult responsibility is also at times very rewarding, they also change, especially when they feel like they can continue to have their fun, their joy, their childlike nature alongside this new way of living.
I think sure, cleaning your house every day is really annoying, but it's also really cool that you get to live alone or that you get to keep your space exactly how you want it.
Independence is pretty cool.
Like.
Having your job is most of the time sometimes very frustrating, but so is being able to afford your own travel items that you want.
Getting to save and meet your goals is also really rewarding.
Getting older doesn't just mean losing parts of yourself.
It also means gaining access to new parts of yourself and new versions of yourself.
So it's kind of like at some point the pro cons list shifts to the cons pros list like something flips for them.
And alongside that I think as well, at some point again they realize you can still have fun and be an adult.
We did a whole episode on this the other day, The Psychology of Whimsy.
That is a big realization, I think, for a lot of Peters.
But As the saying goes, they have to realize that themselves.
You can take a horse to water, you can't make it drink.
Somebody you love.
If they don't want to change, if they don't want to grow up, nothing you can do is going to make them.
There's no forcing them.
There's no arguing with it.
Sometimes it's just about they have to see all the things that they're also losing by staying the same.
They think that they're going to lose so much by growing up.
They think that that's where all the loss comes from.
At some point, I think, people with Peter Pan syndrome realize all that they lose by choosing not to grow up.
And as we said, there's often a social turning point.
There's also, I think, an emotional turning point, when they realize that their capacity and their ability to connect with others there's a ceiling to it unless they take on some responsibility.
And as the quality of their relationships get worse, and if they're somebody who is self-aware enough to see that they're getting worse, things will hopefully kind of start to change.
Hopefully.
So there you go.
That is our episode on Peter Pan syndrome.
I had so much fun researching this and looking into this.
It is honestly so deeply, deeply interesting. fascinating, especially Wendy syndrome.
So if you have made it this far and you were listening on Spotify, leave a little fairy emoji down below to represent Tinkerbell.
And so I know that you have listened to the very end.
If you know somebody who was a PETA, feel free to DM me.
Tell me a little bit more.
See if it matches up with the description.
I feel like this is such an interesting concept and idea of people that's going to become a lot more popularized as we see more like Manosphere content and we see more increasing difficulties around like getting employment and like getting a job and like shifting gender roles.
I just feel like it's going to become a much bigger part of like our social conversation.
So yeah, I'm glad we could do like a full episode of it after waiting.
Thank you as always to our researcher, Lucy Davidson, who helped with this episode.
She did so much fantastic research and did some really great deep diving that allowed us to make this episode what it was.
What's the other thing that we need to say?
Instagram, Substack, Netflix, all those things in the description.
If you want to check them out, you can also share this episode with a friend.
Maybe somebody who you share a mutual pita with, if you think that they would enjoy it.
Learn from it.
Laugh at it.
Maybe, maybe not.
But until next time, be safe, be kind, be gentle with yourself.
We will talk very, very soon.
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A billion dollar fraud.
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Tell me what you know.
Is somebody coming after me?
Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Hey, what's good, y'all?
You're listening to Learn the Hard Way with your favorite therapist and host, Keir Gaines.
This space is about Black men's experiences having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing.
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Therapy is fantastic but once again, it does not have a monopoly on healing.
That's why I create the resources and that's why I create the community, because I really just want you to have more access.
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Listen to Cultivating Her Space on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Your body is not what you thought it was.
Your identity is formed by a secret history.
I'm Dani Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets.
He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move.
And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off.
And that was the last time I saw him.
Listen to Season 14 of Family Secrets on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is an iHeart Podcast.
Guaranteed human.
