A beautiful song capturing childhood anxieties, disappointments, pressures, fears, etc.
The opening lines suggest any turmoil a child faces - divorce, loss, entering school, bullying, etc…
These upset ‘the fun’. Hence, ‘They took the game right out of it…’
The adult voices (‘Oh! When you’re older, you’ll understand it all!’ … ‘Oh, you poor thing!’ … ‘There! There! My dear! Such a sensitive child!’) don’t achieve the reassurance they offer.
Adult and child worlds can be exclusive; (word) misunderstandings can heighten fears, self-doubts, and achieve the opposite effect; and from the child’s perspective, the (adult) world can seem impossible, frightening, horrid, etc.
‘Dennis’ is a confident child whose heroes are real people (‘photo’). His heroes are functioning vehicles into adulthood.
His confidence (unintentionally) heightens the other’s fear of emptiness and disconnection. So the other retreats into and uses the reassuring world of Peter Pan to negotiate his/her transition into adulthood.
Such is the endurance of the Peter Pan myth!
A beautiful song capturing childhood anxieties, disappointments, pressures, fears, etc.
The opening lines suggest any turmoil a child faces - divorce, loss, entering school, bullying, etc… These upset ‘the fun’. Hence, ‘They took the game right out of it…’
The adult voices (‘Oh! When you’re older, you’ll understand it all!’ … ‘Oh, you poor thing!’ … ‘There! There! My dear! Such a sensitive child!’) don’t achieve the reassurance they offer. Adult and child worlds can be exclusive; (word) misunderstandings can heighten fears, self-doubts, and achieve the opposite effect; and from the child’s perspective, the (adult) world can seem impossible, frightening, horrid, etc.
‘Dennis’ is a confident child whose heroes are real people (‘photo’). His heroes are functioning vehicles into adulthood. His confidence (unintentionally) heightens the other’s fear of emptiness and disconnection. So the other retreats into and uses the reassuring world of Peter Pan to negotiate his/her transition into adulthood. Such is the endurance of the Peter Pan myth!