About This Episode

Grown adults have become a major force in the toy industry—buying LEGO sets, stuffed animals, collectibles, nostalgic toys, and other products once marketed primarily to children. The trend has become so significant that there’s now a name for it: “kidulting.”

But is this simply harmless nostalgia—or does it reveal something deeper about modern adulthood?

In this episode of The Deep End, Pastor Tim Hatch looks beyond the booming adult toy market to examine why so many adults are searching for comfort in childhood. From the resurgence of nostalgic toys and adults sleeping with stuffed animals to Madonna and an entertainment culture seemingly determined to remain forever young, Pastor Tim asks what our resistance to growing older may reveal about our culture.

The issue, he argues, isn’t whether an adult owns LEGO, collects toys, plays video games, or returns to an old hobby. Pastor Tim even shares why returning to drumming has been beneficial in his own life. The deeper question is whether nostalgia and entertainment have become substitutes for maturity, responsibility, relationships, family, community, and ultimately God.

Why Are Adults Turning Back to Childhood?

Pastor Tim examines several reasons commonly given for the rise of “kidulting”: comfort, nostalgia, community, stress relief, loneliness, security, and the desire to escape an increasingly uncertain world.

Those needs are real.

The question is where we look to satisfy them.

The episode contrasts temporary comfort found in nostalgia and consumer products with the comfort, peace, belonging, rest, and security Scripture says are ultimately found in God.

Pastor Tim points to passages including 2 Corinthians 1, Psalm 4, Matthew 11:28, Isaiah 26:3, Psalm 23, Malachi 4, and Philippians 4, arguing that many of the needs adults are attempting to meet through nostalgia are needs Christianity addresses through Christ and Christian community.

Kidulting, Madonna and a Culture Obsessed With Staying Young

The conversation also turns to pop culture and the continuing obsession with appearing and behaving young.

Pastor Tim uses Madonna and the VMAs as an example of a larger cultural resistance to aging. Rather than treating aging as something that can bring maturity, wisdom, responsibility, and dignity, he argues that modern culture increasingly treats youth itself as the ideal.

That same impulse can appear in less dramatic ways: adults continually retreating into childhood entertainment, delaying responsibility, or attempting to recreate a period of life that felt safer and simpler.

But nostalgia has limitations.

Pastor Tim points to Ecclesiastes, which warns against continually asking why the former days were better. The past feels safe partly because we already know how it turned out. The future requires faith.

Are We Delaying Adulthood?

The episode connects the kidult phenomenon to several broader cultural trends: people marrying later, having fewer children, purchasing homes later in life, experiencing loneliness, and delaying traditional milestones of adulthood.

Pastor Tim also discusses the financial pressures facing younger adults, including housing and childcare costs, while challenging the idea that difficult circumstances make marriage, children, or meaningful adult responsibility impossible.

His larger concern is not simply economic.

It is whether fear of the future is causing people to retreat into the familiarity of the past.

Rather than building toward something—marriage, children, community, service, church, legacy—people can become increasingly focused inward.

Childish vs. Childlike: What Does the Bible Say About Growing Up?

The central biblical passage of the episode comes from 1 Corinthians 13:11:

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”

Pastor Tim points out that Paul’s statement appears within the famous chapter about love.

That context matters.

Biblical maturity isn’t merely getting older, earning more money, owning a house, or abandoning everything you enjoyed as a child. Growing up means learning to move beyond a life centered entirely upon yourself.

As Pastor Tim puts it, growing up is moving from a life centered on yourself to a life poured out for someone else.

A mature life makes room for a spouse, children, church, neighbors, community—and above all, God.

Jesus also tells His followers to become like children. But Pastor Tim draws an important distinction between being childish and being childlike.

Childishness says: I want what I want when I want it.

Childlike faith says: Father, I trust You.

The Deeper Problem With Nostalgia

There is nothing inherently wrong with enjoying a hobby, collecting something, playing a game, or occasionally revisiting something you loved as a child.

The danger comes when the past becomes a refuge from the responsibilities and calling of the present.

The Gospel doesn’t call Christians backward into perpetual childhood. It calls them forward toward spiritual maturity, love, service, responsibility, and ultimately the return of Christ.

The comfort people are searching for is found in Him.

The security they are searching for is found in Him.

The belonging they are searching for can be found in the community He created—the Church.

You don’t have to return to childhood to find peace.

You can go forward to the Father.

Watch this episode of The Deep End with Pastor Tim Hatch for a biblical perspective on kidulting, nostalgia, adulthood, family, loneliness, cultural decline, and what it actually means to grow up.