Kidult

The portmanteau coinages kidult,^[1] rejuvenile,^[2] adultescent^[3] refer to adults with interests traditionally seen as suitable for children.

It can also have other meanings, such as a parent who enjoys being a parent due to spending quality time with his or her children, but is reluctant to lay down the law or handle the more serious aspects of parenthood.^{[citation needed]}

In the past, psychology recognized the concept of puer aeternus, or "eternal boy", a person remaining emotionally at the adolescent level. In pop-culture it got the name the Peter Pan syndrome, after the archetypal "eternal boy", Peter Pan.

However recently it is a growing recognition that for an adult to have interests traditionally expected only from children is not necessary an anomaly.^[2] The entertainment industry was quick to recognized the trend, and introduced a special category, "kidult" of things marketable for kids and adults alike.^[1][4] Enormous successes of films like Shrek and Harry Potter,^[5] of books traditionally targeted for teenagers^[6] and the fact that Disneyland is among world top adult (without kids) vacation destinations^[1] seem to indicate that "kidulthood" is a rather mainstream phenomenon. And unlike puer aeternus, "rejuveniles" successfully marry adult responsibilities with non-adult interests.^[1] When Christopher Noxon appeared on The Colbert Report on June 29, 2006, he remarked that "There's a big difference between childish and childlike".

Karen Brooks explores a contribution to this phenomenon of what she calls the phenomenon of the "commodification of youth": entertainers sell "the teen spirit" to adults who in the past were called "young at heart".^[7]

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