"Puer aeternus" ("man-child")

Puer aeternus..., Latin for "eternal boy", in mythology, is a child-god who is forever young. In psychology, it is an older person whose emotional life has remained at an adolescent level. The puer typically leads a provisional life, due to the fear of being caught in a situation from which it might not be possible to escape. He covets independence and freedom, opposes boundaries and limits, and tends to find any restriction intolerable...

Like all archetypes, the puer is bi-polar, exhibiting both a "positive" and a "negative" aspect. The "positive" side of the puer appears as... newness, potential for growth, hope for the future... The "negative" side is the child-man who refuses to grow up and meet the challenges of life face on, waiting instead for his ship to come in and solve all his problems.

I thought it worthwhile to briefly define "man-child" since the term is becoming more commonly used in reports about current events.