Infantilised: How Our Culture Killed Adulthood

Have you ever noticed that in areas of everyday life, rather than being addressed like a mature adult, you’re increasingly treated like an irresponsible child in constant need of instruction and protection? Perhaps when passing by unnecessary health and safety signage telling you how to walk up a flight of stairs or use a handrail? Or maybe you’ve spotted it on television, in the countless commercials that use babyish jingles and cutesy, cartoon animals in campaigns for adult goods and services? Or it could be when being talked down to by barely educated politicians or, even worse, told what to think by entirely uneducated celebrities? But whenever and wherever it happens, you’re left with a sinking feeling that something’s not quite right; that instead of inhabiting a mature, grown-up world of foresight and experience, you’ve been enrolled, without your consent, into something resembling universalised adult day-care.

Noticing society’s creeping descent into infantilisation is one thing, however understanding the roots and causes of the phenomenon is not quite so easy. But in this topical and vitally important new work, cultural theorist and academic, Dr Keith Hayward, exposes the deep social, psychological and political dangers of a world characterised by denuded adult autonomy.

But importantly Infantilised is no one-dimensional, unsympathetic critique. Brimming with anecdotes and examples that span everything from the normalisation of infantilism on reality TV to the rise of a new class of political ‘infantocrat’, this comprehensive book also offers an insightful and at times humorous account of infantilism’s seductive appeal, and details some suggestions for avoiding some of the pitfalls associated with our increasingly infantilised world.