Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional

I've been looking at the theme of 'growing up' as a starting point for my final year research. This stemmed from an interest in kidswear which led onto children's literature. The books that stood out to me were Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland which both contain this theme. It made me consider the contrasts of wanting to stay young and wanting to grow up, which I think we go through in life constantly. The strains of work and responsibility make us want the simplicity of childhood and that 'ignorance is bliss' feeling where you don't have a care in the world.

On the other hand, being younger than legal age for drinking, doing naughty things and not being old enough to come home when we wanted made us wish we were older.

I'm sure most of us would say that once we became older it wasn't all it was cracked up to be!

I've read a lot of theories on Peter Pan. There are a lot of sinister analyses of the story, but ultimately J.M.Barrie based the characters on his life and his relationships. 

The main theme of the book is that all children must grow up; Wendy goes back to her parents, she can't be like Peter: he is there for her to learn that she needs to go home and accept her responsibilities and she can't stay young forever. Peter is irresponsible and naive and is there to show Wendy and the reader what you cannot be rather than what you can be.  

On the contrary in Alice in Wonderland, Alice literally grows and shrinks with different encounters of food and drinks within the book. Analysis of this shows that growing up is unpredictable and Alice has to deal with being too small or too big in certain situations. 

So alike Peter pan, we are shown that growing up is inevitable and responsibility has to be taken, even if it is a bumpy ride!

I find it really interesting going back to books and films from childhood and rediscovering the adult themes in them that you would never have noticed before. It makes you wonder do we take these themes on subliminally or are they there to be discovered when we are older. (We only realise when we have grown up..oohhh! Think I'm getting too deep into this!)

I like the contrast shown here of staying young vs growing up, which has spurred me on to look at other contrasts and bring this into a fashion sense. I think this would be a nice theme for kidswear too as it is directly linked. 

And on that note I'll wrap this up as I think I've aged writing this post!
My brain hurts.