ARE YOU MARRIED TO A CHILD?

They shirk responsibility, sulk and throw their toys out of the pram if they don’t get their own way. Anna Moore charts the rise of the ‘kidult’ men who refuse to grow up, and asks what you can do if you’re married to one

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The cracks in Lucy and James’s marriage appeared almost as soon as she brought home their baby. ‘Until our son was born, we’d kept life James’s way,’ says Lucy, 32. ‘I didn’t have anyone else to look after – so I basically looked after James.’

Both had careers – Lucy in design, James in property. Lucy had learnt how to keep life ticking along smoothly. Their flat was never messy (Lucy tidied up after both of them) and their fridge never short of his favourite beer. If James wanted to stay up late playing computer games or drinking with his friends, that was no problem. And if he slept in late at weekends, Lucy was more than happy to quietly occupy herself.

‘All that changed with parenthood,’ says Lucy. ‘I was preoccupied, tired and also utterly in love with our son. The flat became messy – because I wasn’t cleaning up – and the beer ran out while I was at the hospital. When I arrived home with our new baby, there was no food in the house, let alone anything to drink.’

Although Lucy was delighted with parenthood, James struggled. ‘He seemed to resent every sacrifice, every adjustment,’ she says. ‘He sulked for days when we had to get rid of our old car – a coupé that was completely impractical. Each day brought either a row, a tantrum or some kind of sulk, and by the time our son was six months old we were barely communicating. All the qualities I’d loved in James – his boyishness, his free spirit – I now despised. What once was fun and endearing now seemed like proof he was emotionally stunted, incapable of growing up and assuming the paternal role.’

We hear a lot about the rise of the ‘adultescent’ or ‘kidult’, the generation that refuses to grow up. It has been linked to all sorts of factors that have conspired to allow fully grown adults to evade responsibility: helicopter parenting; the rocketing cost of education and housing; extended career internships and the trend towards later marriages. At the same time, an industry has sprung up to celebrate the kidult, whether that’s adult video games, cartoons or TV programmes such as Top Gear (both Jeremy Clarkson, 56, and Chris Evans, 50, are known for their love of speed, boys’ toys and gadgets, as well as their professional meltdowns and fondness for wanting things ‘their way’. Each departed the show under a cloud).

An extensive study commissioned

The rise of the ‘kidult’ has allowed grown adults to evade responsibility