Despite its shortcomings, limitations and contradictions, today's youth is considered a value in itself. Its social influence is greater than in previous times, as test is daily news in the media. Lately it imposes its tastes, hobbies, way of speaking and dressing, etc. on people of other ages. In addition, their demands have a lot of echo (although they are not always attended). Today, being young is a value that sells very well. In every department store there is a "young section", where you can buy young clothes, young furniture, young music...

The growing social influence of youth would be good news if it meant that older people were young in spirit and acting on ideals. But this is often not the case. Many adults are uncomfortable in the face of the social force of youth, even to the point of giving in to their own principles and habits. They meekly accept the motto of living for themselves and having the time of their lives. This behavior is encouraged by the ideologies of the "new individualism", which promotes the "morality of tolerance", according to which the goodness of acts would be based on desire and not on the moral rule .

In order to present the new "values" in an attractive way, individualism resorts to the manipulation of language. The most primal human weaknesses and defects are disguised in euphemisms. For example, selfishness is "self-realization", while impudence is "sincerity". And if it is test that some behavior is really a mistake or a defect, it is attributed to a "self-esteem deficit" or a difficulty of "adaptation". Immoral behaviors would be "psychological maladjustments." Psychology replaces ethics; that is why some people are changing the confessor for the psychologist.

All this reflects the fact that society is currently undergoing a process of juvenalization. It consists of older people copying the behavior of young people, both because it has become fashionable and because they are not resigned to living their age. Naturally, they expose themselves to ridicule and danger, as, for example, when they try to practice high mountain sports when they are over 65 years old.

I have seen with astonishment a advertisement addressed to "Young grandparents" in which they are offered to buy a convertible sports car with two seats (in which the grandchildren cannot fit) with this slogan: "what you always wanted to have; you deserve it". Another example: they are offered an expensive tourist trip in which they will finally have the opportunity to dance to the music and rhythm of today's young people.

 The pretension of living like young people is causing the Peter Pan personality to emerge in older people, the egocentric and narcissistic child that remains hidden within ourselves and refuses to say goodbye.

The childishness and adolescent mentality of many adults is often observed even at some family parties, where both children and parents are more concerned with cell phones than with talking to each other.

Today it is worth remembering the words of Paul Claudel: "youth was not made for pleasure, but for heroism". And others by Gustav Thibon: "Youth has its truth and its beauty while it lasts. If one tries to stretch it beyond its limits, it becomes chronic, like some diseases. By clinging too tightly to the fugitive glow of youth, one runs the risk of falling into a semi-neurotic state, that of fixation on the past. And from there to not knowing how to welcome the precious gifts of maturity and old age".

 The status in which older "peterpanes" live often causes them emotional disturbances, such as anxiety and depression. In addition, because they do not take on commitments and responsibilities, they also fail to achieve personal accomplishments, which negatively affects their self-esteem.

One of the candidates to become a "peterpan" for life is the adolescent who goes from being overprotected and pampered by his mother to being pampered by his wife. He can be recognized by these symptoms: a great need to be cared for; self-centered; blaming others for his own mistakes.

Another candidate is the one who had a very happy childhood or, on the contrary, a very unhappy one. In the first case the function of the Peter Pan syndrome is to perpetuate that happy childhood; in the second case it is to recover the childhood that was stolen.

The inversion of values in today's society, placing utility and pleasure at the top of the axiological pyramid, is a source of despair. I will say it with some words of A. Llano: "man is not only hungry for bread or power: he is, above all, hungry for meaning".