Sho Baraka - Talented 10thSample

Peter Pan

By James Roberson

I Don’t Want to Grow Up. I’m a Hip Hop Kid.

I don't have the urge to play with toys. I see my kids playing with them, and I don't feel any internal pressure to get on the floor when no one is watching and pretend I'm in a war with my GI Joes or that I'm a gladiator along with He-Man. When I hear, "I don't want to grow up. I'm a Toys R Us Kid," I can no longer relate. The toys of the past don't temp me to return to my childhood. Yet, there are things that tempt me to act childish. Some days, I like being lazy and not doing any work. I feel tempted to look at women, at times, and view them as objects of my desire and not real people. I feel tempted by money, power, and sex. When I hear any of those elements, they remind me of my reckless youth. What helps me beyond those temptations is pursuing what God has called me to: manhood not boyhood.

Author Darrin Patrick coined the term ban: not a boy, not a man, but something in between; an extended adolescence that gives young adults the freedom to continue to live like boys. The ‘ban’ is growing more addicted to video games and porn on a daily basis, according to psychologist Phillip Zimbard. The ‘ban’ also has another playful activity: he loves Hip Hop.

“Peter Pan” is an indictment on Hip Hop, bans, and a culture that encourages grown men to live like irresponsible boys. But Hip Hop has the potential to be an agent of change. Hip Hop speaks to your emotions and your intellect so much so that a song may make you want to act like a kid. Or it can push you to do something, so that you will take ownership like a man. Hip Hop as an industry has decided it doesn't want boys to grow up and get jobs, have a wife, raise children, and leave a legacy. Hip Hop thinks it's ok to be 40, play with the emotions of women, and waste time like you’re 14 years old.

Yet, every male has to make a decision on whether or not he will blame others for what he doesn’t become, or accept his God-given role as a leader. Men have within themselves the bloodline of the first man who was irresponsible (Gen. 3:12). We also have Hip Hop, fatherlessness, poor role models, mothers that smother their boys and protect them from risks, the media, and a whole host of other reasons why boys forego their chances to be men.

The apostle Paul said, "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things” (1 Cor. 13:11). Dr. Robert Lewis, the creator of the Men's Fraternity curriculum, says he wonders what those things were that Paul stopped saying and thinking. He went on to say, “Until a man accepts his calling as a leader he will always be a boy.” These are powerful words. A man will be trapped in a web of lies, excuses, videos, and Hip Hop fantasies until he decides, one day, that God has made him to take charge of his life, family, and community, and not live as a perpetual victim. I encourage every man reading this to not be like Peter Pan – always living in a fantasy; always living as a boy. Be like Paul the Apostle: put away childish things.

Get 'Talented 10th' at TheOverflow.com