Coming of Age: Family in Peter Pan

No one has perfect parents. I was rather hoping my children would be the exception, but I realize now that the patience I’d exhibited in earlier life wasn’t a virtue—it was a lack of proper provocation. These days, my children specialize in provocation, and I disappoint them on a regular basis. It’s unfortunate, but it’s part of reality in a fallen world. Eventually these disappointments will play a role in their coming of age.

We’ve already seen how first love and death are catalysts in the coming-of-age process, and today we’ll look at the role that family plays. Specifically, we’ll see how a child’s trust gets broken and their love can become jaded. Once his family has let him down, he’s on his way to coming of age. We’ll see this today in Peter Pan and next time in The Yearling.

Peter Pan: No Family and No Growing Up

Peter Pan lives in a young boy’s paradise: all action and adventure with no mother to caution him and no father to lecture him. The Darlings—Wendy, Peter, and Michael—are in just the opposite situation at the opening of the story. Their mother is lovely and dotes on them, but she chides and corrects where needed. Their father is prideful and rather silly, but they love him nonetheless.

When Peter lures Wendy to Neverland, it’s because he wants the comfort of a mother without the obligations of a real family. Basically, he’s just in it for the stories, like the ones he overhears Mrs. Darling telling in the nursery. Peter wants Wendy to tell stories to the Lost Boys, but she insists on taking on the full roll of Mother—administering medicine, cautioning about swimming after mealtime, and carrying on with typical matronly fuss. Peter plays along when it suits him, but little does he know that everyone else has a growing desire for more than a pretend family.

The First Tremors

One benefit of a pretend family is that they can’t disappoint you like a real one could. Peter has safeguarded himself. The Darling children, on the other hand, have already felt the first tremors of parental betrayal. At the beginning of the book, Father plays a cowardly trick on their faithful dog, Nana, and he refuses to own up to it. His lack of honesty and chivalry shock the children. Before this disappointment has time to take its full effect in their hearts, they are spirited away to Neverland that very night.

The Dreadful Truth About Mothers

It would seem that the Darlings are the only ones aware of parental foibles. But one night in Neverland, Wendy tells a bedtime story about how her parents faithfully wait years for their children to come home and then welcome them back with open arms. Peter mournfully interjects that mothers aren’t like that at all. He tells how, when he’d tried to go home after years in Neverland, he found that his own mother had barred the nursery window and had placed a new baby in the cradle. He had hastened back to Neverland, resumed his life of heartless innocence, and hadn’t mentioned a word about it until now.

The narrator points out that, whether or not this is factually true, Peter truly believes it. Only Peter could experience that kind of betrayal and remain unjaded, although the fracture lines are still visible if you look closely. His tale of what mothers are really like causes panic in the Darling children and the Lost Boys. They fly back to London to beg Mrs. and Mr. Darling to accept them and adopt the Lost Boys. Peter comes with them but refuses to debase himself in this way. He denies family and dodges maturity.

The Darlings and Lost Boys: Family and Maturity

After that, of course, the Lost Boys and the Darling children come of age and grow up. Father is relatively humbled after the Nana incident, although one can be sure he disappointed his children many more times after their return. At first Wendy feels that her own growth is a kind of betrayal to Peter. She tries to wear her old leaf dress from Neverland when Peter visits her in later years, but she’s outgrown it.

Her role in the family—first as a growing daughter and then as a mother herself—leads to a standard, run-of-the-mill maturity. The rest of the boys fare no better; they get boring jobs, have families, and forget all about Neverland. This is the epitome of tragedy to Peter, and he’s glad to have no part in it.

Peter’s Protection

Peter’s isolation does serve as a protection against betrayal, though. When a child trusts his parents implicitly and they disappoint him, the relationship carries that first fracture forever. The alleged betrayal by Peter’s mother leaves a gap in his heart that he fills with independence and stubbornness. He isn’t bitter or broken, but he’s guarded in his own way, ensuring that no mother ever has the chance to forget him again.

Peter’s Resilient Innocence

Despite his defensiveness and because of his innocence, Peter believes that Captain Hook will behave honorably in battle. When Hook betrays this belief by biting the hand with which Peter offers to help him, Peter is dumbfounded. The narrator explains Peter’s reaction like this:

“Every child is [dazed and horrified] the first time he is treated unfairly. All he thinks he has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but will never afterwards be quite the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter. He often met it, but he always forgot it. I suppose that was the real difference between him and all the rest.”

If he had been a normal boy in a normal family, these betrayals would eventually have jaded or calloused him, as it does to the rest of us. But Peter is no ordinary boy; he’s the boy who never grows up.

To Grow or Not to Grow

A child’s family plays a critical role in his coming of age, and Peter is the exception that proves the rule. The fact that he has no real family is a major factor in his perpetual innocence. The Darling children accept the reality that parents are fallible, and they grow accordingly. Peter, who could never accept his own mother’s betrayal, rejects the whole institution and remains “gay and innocent and heartless.”

Join us next time to see how Jody Baxter’s family is a catalyst for his coming of age in The Yearling.