I’m a Disney Adult. No, I Won’t Take Off the Mickey Ears or Grow Up - Newsweek

I recently found myself at a backyard party in Los Angeles, the kind where everyone is very cool and freely spends $30 on an Erewhon smoothie. Somehow my best friend of 20-plus years and I ended up in a conversation about Disney adults with a group of people we barely knew.

"Oh, I have an annual pass to Disneyland," I offered, happily, with no hint of shame.

Some of the strangers looked surprised. Others clearly wanted to laugh. My friend, reading the room, jumped in to save me.

"Well, you're not like a Disney adult," he said. "Not like those others. You're more goth Disney."

He smiled, hoping the word "goth" would buy me back a little cool. It was a kind gesture. I declined it.

"No, I'm just a Disney adult," I said. "I'm an adult who loves going to Disney. It's not that complicated."

To a lot of people, it is complicated. I have some version of that conversation all the time, and recently I had it with a colleague. Shane Croucher wrote the Newsweek op-ed titled "Disney Adults, Take Off the Mickey Ears, Go Home and Grow Up,” and to nobody’s surprise, social media got angry.

"If you're an adult with children, and you can afford to, go to Disney World. Dive in and enjoy it," he wrote.

"But if you're a grown adult to whom none of the above applies? And you're at Disney World? Take a long, hard look at yourself. Feel that shame scorch. I bet you use the word 'adulting,' don't you? I feel sick even writing it.

"Throw the Mickey ears in the trash, go home, and grow up."

Harsh, right? But let's be real, it's nothing a quick spin on Space Mountain couldn't fix.

Briefly forgetting how the internet works, I commented on the Instagram post for Shane's piece. "Can't steal my joy," I wrote. "I'm too blessed eating churros at Disney to be stressed."

You can imagine what happened next. My replies filled up with people calling out Shane's tone. I won't repeat them here, because this is supposed to be the nice essay.

But underneath the churro joke was something I actually believe: Shane has it backward. Being a Disney adult isn't a refusal to grow up. For a lot of us, it's what growing up finally made possible.

Shane's argument is that the parks belong to parents, and that any adult without kids who shows up has something wrong with them. I understand the instinct. But it raises a question: What's the alternative? What's the properly grown-up way to spend a Saturday? A bar? A ballgame? Nobody tells a grown man in a full Dodgers uniform to go home and grow up.

And listen, all of those are great if they're your thing. They're just not mine. It's not like I'm writing an essay about your boring adult activities. (I mean, don’t even get me started on golf.) If that's your thing, then I'm happy for ya. I just happen to like delicious food, fun rides and watching other people have the best day of their lives.

That last part is what Disney adult critics tend to miss. A big part of the joy is the kids. The toddler sprinting toward Mickey like he's a long-lost relative. The kid racing an ice cream cone before it melts. The tiny princess marching through Fantasyland in full costume. Do I need to be their parent to enjoy that? I don't think so. After all, joy isn’t contained to just blood relatives.

Are there annoying adults at Disney? Absolutely. And yes, some of them are there without kids. However, plenty of them are the parents Shane just gave a pass to. Every fandom has its bad apples; it doesn’t mean all of us are rotten. (Intentional Snow White reference because I can’t help myself.)

After reading Shane’s piece, I wanted to figure out where my own love for Disney started. Because every Disney adult has a reason. Here's mine.

After my parents divorced, my dad got custody, and I only saw my mom a couple of times a year. On one of those visits, she took me to see The Little Mermaid. As we were leaving, the theater manager stopped us to apologize. Apparently the air conditioning had gone out during the movie, and he handed us tickets for a free show.

What did we do with them? We walked right back in and watched the very next showing of The Little Mermaid.

Honestly, I don't even remember it being hot. I just remember getting to sit next to my mom for two movies instead of one. Disney movies became our tradition after that. It took us 10 years to save enough to go to Disney World as a family, and I've never forgotten that trip.

And that tradition never really ended, it just kind of morphed into something new as I got older. When I met my partner, we bonded early on over our love of Disney, and it became a touchstone of our relationship. The first movie we saw together was Coco.

Birthdays. Holidays. They're all spent at Disney. We actively make memories at a place that brings us joy. If that's a bad thing, then maybe I'm doing this whole love thing wrong. (But considering how happy we are, I kinda feel like I'm on to something here.)

So when I walk into Disneyland now with an annual pass, I'm not refusing to grow up. I'm doing the most grown-up thing I know how to do: choosing, with my own time and my own money, to go back to the place that holds some of my happiest memories.

As a kid, Disney was something we saved a decade for. As an adult, it's something I get to choose. So where's the shame in that?

And you know what? That's true for so many of us, parents and childless alike. We don't go because something is wrong with us. We go because it holds memories we want to hold on to, not move on from. And because it's still a great place to make new ones. If an adult holding on to joy looks like a red flag to you, I'd gently suggest the problem isn't the Mickey ears.

Anyway, it's not like us Disney adults are out here judging you for putting your kids on leashes.

(But really, why are we putting kids on leashes?)