The first thing that struck me while reading Jacqueline Rose’s, The Case of Peter Pan, was the fact that it was about Peter Pan. The story of the boy who never wants to become an adult. He wants to stay a little boy forever. He NEVER wants to grow up. I felt this was the perfect entrance piece of writing to read for this course because it gave a good insight to some of the history of Peter Pan but it also challenged ideas and raised questions that probably wouldn’t have come up otherwise. But what I really wanted to focus on is what really stood out to me. I was thinking about it through the entire text was when Rose said,

“Peter Pan offers us the child — forever.”

While reading this, I went back to Beverly Clark’s, “Kiddie Lit” where she mentions that there is some part in us that “values childhood. But we also dismiss it.” People love taking trips down memory lane to the times before responsibility and work and paying bills. I know I do. So there is a little Peter Pan in all of us I guess. Some part of us that wants to stay young. However this is not acceptable “adult behavior”. Eventually we all “grow up” and become a rational, responsible adult. Peter Pan never does. He is an adult’s fantasy.