Growing Up Too Fast

"Boys just get papier-mâchéd inside a man's mask."

-David Mitchell Black Swan Green

           

         As a human being develops, they are expected to mature. In reality this does not happen, people never grow up. When someone ages they never completely lose their childlike attitude. In Black Swan Green, Ross Wilcox and Neal Brose are both boys who are developing into young men. It is expected of them to be mature and to be gentlemen but instead they remain childlike. Ross Wilcox still puts a mouse head in Jason's pencil case and Neal Brose still forces kids to pay for "popularity lessons". Yet the adults are completely unaware of these events and still think Neal Brose is a golden boy. They all appear to be becoming men but in reality the have just gotten better at hiding themselves with a facade. This trend is a commonality in today's world, people's features come across as mature but in reality they are anything but. This is caused by children being forced to grow up too fast, instead of taking the time they need to mature they are being forced to become adults. During this process of "growing up" children manipulate others into thinking that they are in fact grown up, but deep down they are still a child hidden by the image of an adult.