Once upon a time, boys and girls grew up and set aside childish
things. Nowadays, moms and dads skateboard alongside their kids and
download the latest pop-song ringtones. Captains of industry pose
for the cover of "BusinessWeek" holding Super Soakers. The average
age of video game players is twenty-nine and rising. Top chefs
develop recipes for Easy-Bake Ovens. Disney World is the world's
top adult vacation destination (that's adults without kids). And
young people delay marriage and childbirth longer than ever in part
to keep family obligations from interfering with their fun fun fun.
Christopher Noxon has coined a word for this new breed of grown-up:
rejuveniles. And as a self-confessed rejuvenile, he's a sympathetic
yet critical guide to this bright and shiny world of people who see
growing up as "winding down"--exchanging a life of playful
flexibility for anxious days tending lawns and mutual funds.
In "Rejuvenile," Noxon explores the historical roots of today's
rejuveniles (hint: all roads lead to Peter Pan), the "toyification"
of practical devices (car cuteness is at an all-time high), and the
new gospel of play. He talks to parents who love cartoons more than
their children do, twenty-somethings who live happily with their
parents, and grown-ups who evangelize on behalf of all-ages tag and
Legos. And he takes on the "Harrumphing Codgers," who see the
rejuvenile as a threat to the social order.
Noxon tempers stories of his and others' rejuvenile tendencies with
cautionary notes about "lost souls whose taste for childish things
is creepy at best." (Exhibit A: Michael Jackson.) On balance,
though, he sees rejuveniles as optimists and capital-R Romantics,
people driven by a desire "to hold on to the part of ourselves that
feels the most genuinely human. We believe in play, in make
believe, in learning, in naps. And in a time of deep uncertainty,
we trust that this deeper, more adaptable part of ourselves is our
best tool of survival."
Fresh and delightfully contrarian, "Rejuvenile" makes hilarious
sense of this seismic culture change. It's essential reading not
only for grown-ups who refuse to "act their age," but for those who
wish they would just grow up.
"From the Hardcover edition."
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