away from Billy, and Peg and John would engage in a lengthy argument. It was always the same. Dad would espouse harshness while Peg advanced the idea that Billy was irresponsible because he suffered some type of mental anguish. Meanwhile, Billy would be out of it, left to believe he was the cause of his parents' fighting. At no time was Billy held accountable for his deaf-dumb-and-blind rou-tine.
There was every reason to believe that while Billy was learning how to avoid responsibility, he was getting the notion that he was a negative influence in the family. N o t only was he deaf, dumb, and blind, but he also thought of himself as a bad kid for upsetting his parents so much.
Mom and Dad's extreme measures were backfiring.
Everybody loved Sam. Good-natured Sam. T h e neigh-bors could count on him to capture a runaway pet. T h e church ladies professed that he was the politest boy in the entire congregation. T h e park leader lauded Sam for his leadership, kindness, and patience in dealing with the younger boys. Even the principal praised the twelve-year-old's pleasing personality, though he complained that Sam was a bit rowdy from time to time.
There was, however, one major problem. Sam's mother, a hard worker both inside and outside the home, didn't know who these people were talking about. "It couldn't be my Sam," she would muse privately. "Sure he's a sweet, good-natured boy, but I can't get him to do even the sim-plest of chores unless I beg him on bended knee."
T h e story of good-natured Sam is typical of that of many PPS victims. They aren't snotty, stoic, or angelic. They aren't particularly nasty or manipulative. In fact, they have public relations skills beyond their years. They are the first
THE PETER PAN SYNDROME
to offer aid to anyone needing it. They'll even risk personal safety to help somebody. However, unless hounded to death, they won't turn a finger to help around the house.
How can a kid so willing to help others be so irrespon-sible at home? T h e best way for me to make sense out of this inconsistency is to summarize the psychological study I completed on twelve-year-old Sam Koler. Sam's style of irresponsibility is the most dangerous of all be-cause it's so easy for kids to fall into and, without help, it becomes an immutable cornerstone of the Peter Pan Syn-drome.
Sam was the oldest of three boys, ages 12,9, and 7 respec-tively. He attended sixth grade at a public elementary school where he maintained a B average without working very hard. T h e teacher reported that Sam was very likable but occasionally acted the class clown. Once, when she sent Sam to in-school suspension for acting up, she overheard him call her a bitch as he walked out the door. She was shocked to hear such language from Sam. It seemed so out of character for good-natured Sam. Actually, it wasn't. Sam was an angry young man.
Sam's anger flowed from many sources. His body was changing and making new demands on his childish out-look. He was discovering independence but living in a de-pendent situation. He wanted to move away from his over-protective mother, a natural occurrence that nonetheless stimulated some guilt. These feelings are typical of early adolescence and would pass. But there was one source of anger that was not harmless and could cause Sam long-term trouble. He felt unloved by his father.
Sam's father was a workaholic. He had little time for his wife and even less time for Sam. In an attempt to win his father's love, Sam threw himself into a grown-up role with all the fervor of an older man and all the efficiency of a toddler. Sam desperately needed love from his father but never got it. He took his search into the grown-up world
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where he hoped that his actions would cause people to tell his dad how great his oldest son was.
Sam figured that when the grown-ups told his father how great Sam was (which they did), his father would reach out and embrace his son (which he did not). Faced with failure, Sam concluded that he had to try harder. Thus, the more his father ignored him, the more Sam tried to win his love by pleasing other people.
Sam was under tremendous pressure to perform. This made him tense. He constantly worried about being seen as bad by his father. This made him nervous and fearful.
He was consumed by shoulds, oughts, have-tos, and musts.
This made him angry.
Sam's only relief from this merry-go-round was to rebel at home. Since he felt sure of his mother's love, she became the logical target of his rebellion. If Sam could have verbal-ized this stance, he might have said, "Mom will still love me even though I treat her bad."
Another part of his justification for militant irresponsi-bility was that he was following in his father's footsteps.
"Be like Dad and Dad will like me" was his thought. Unfor-tunately, Dad held fast to the chauvinistic notion that housework was woman's work. Sam never said it but he behaved as if he believed it.
Lest we forget, another part of good-natured Sam's rea-son for being irresponsible was that he was a kid. He was twelve years old and, like any other normal pre-teenager, he was doing everything he could not to grow up. But this part of the normal course of events was out of balance. It gave me the first clue that something was wrong with good-natured Sam.
Sam was too good for his own good. He tried too hard to please. This led me to investigate the cloud behind the silver lining. I found that Sam's behavior was misleading.
Despite appearances, Sam was not learning responsibility.
Gross feelings of insecurity motivated his "responsible"
THE PETER PAN SYNDROME
conduct. He got temporary relief from these feelings through his glorification in the eyes of others.
Needless to say, there was an emotional buildup throughout this vicious circle. Sam felt estranged from his father and was compelled to perform for social approval that he hoped would solve his problem. But it only deep-ened it. He worked harder, all the time acquiring a nasty aversion to responsibility. He was developing the idea that responsibility was a sham—something done by people only to gain approval. Consequently he never internalized a sense of responsibility.
When I saw Sam and his family, one cornerstone of the Peter Pan Syndrome was firmly in place. Reversing the trend was a family problem. I'll discuss my approach to the problem of good-natured Sam as well as those of the three other boys in Chapter 12.
Anxiety
JOHN: "[Peter] is not really our father. He did not even know how to be a father till I showed him."
PETER: "Wendy, you are wrong about mothers. I thought like you about the window [that it would remain open], so I stayed away for moons and moons, and then I flew back, but the window was barred, for my mother had forgotten all about me and there was another little boy sleeping in my bed."
Peter was a nervous wreck. His anxiety ricocheted around Never Never Land, infecting everybody with an instant case of the jitters. You've all seen such a person. His emo-tions are so tightly strung that he fills the air with psychic electricity. When you ask him if he's okay, he chops you off in mid-thought. "Me? Okay? I'm fine! Great! Nothing wrong with me! Anything wrong with you?"
If you take a moment to look beyond his gaiety, Peter's anxiety sticks out like a sore thumb. And it doesn't take a clinical psychologist to see it. Forget about the ink smudges and hours of psychological diagnostics. Just take a quick glance at his daily behavior.
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T h e most reliable evidence of Peter's anxiety is that his sense of urgency was out of balance. For example, he calmly played his pipes as Captain Hook ignited the fuse on a bomb. He was thrilled at the prospect of drowning because dying sounded like a great way to spend the after-noon. It doesn't take a hysteric to get upset about these two calamities. Peter, however, didn't even break into a sweat.
Peter did become extremely agitated at the loss of his shadow. He had a temper fit when his loyal followers wouldn't play-act the way he wanted. And he was very jumpy at the possibility of being touched by another per-son. All in all, Peter's priorities were definitely skewed.
If you believe, as I do, that Peter was not mentally ill, then you have to conclude that something was bugging him. He didn't understand it but felt the negative effects nonetheless. He sensed it but couldn't say it.
Like any anxious person, Peter tried to cover his worry, but his cover belied the cause. That is, as Peter defended against feeling nervous, he dropped clues as to the cause of his anxiety. T h e two quotes at the beginning of this chapter represent those clues: that Peter was estranged from his father and deeply troubled by what he interpreted as his mother's rejection. T h e combination caused him im-measurable anxiety. He had no one to turn to whom he could trust. He needed help.
If I had been around to help Peter with his anxiety, I would have focused my attention on his parents, treating Peter's nervousness as an indicator of family trouble.
Something was wrong with his parents' marriage. Was Mr.
Pan a workaholic who felt sorry for himself? Was he the product of a generation in which boys didn't cry? Was Mrs.
Pan content with the traditional role of housewife and mother? Did the Pans give in to peer pressure in raising Peter? Was Mr. Pan a chauvinist? If so, did Mrs. Pan play the "chauvinette" role? Did the Pans work at their mar-riage, or just go along out of a sense of habit?
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