I’ll bet you do. Almost everyone knows a grown-up in their life who has to be right all the time, has to be catered to, and blames everyone else for failures or unpleasant events.

Who is a King Baby? (Not to be sexist. There is also Queen Baby.) Someone who never grew up, at least not emotionally. King baby expects everyone to love him, take care of him, and solve all his problems for him.

Reference.com says that a King Baby: “is typically selfish, rejects criticism, complains, is obsessed with money and belongings and doesn’t feel like rules should apply to him. In short, he is someone who refuses to mature.” Tom Cunningham wrote the book (well, the 28-page pamphlet) on King Baby Syndrome in 1986. It’s still available from Hazelden, which is good because King Babies haven’t gone away, nor are they likely to.

King Babies view the world as their plaything and other people as someone whose only function is to meet their needs. Physically they are adults, but emotionally they are still infants. Typical King Baby remarks are, “That’s not fair,” “This is what I want,” “That’s not how I do it,” “Do this for me,” and “I’m the best at everything.”

Needless to say, King Babies are very trying to be around.

I learned about King Baby syndrome from my husband. Not that he has King Baby syndrome. But he used to work as a counselor with various therapy groups. One thing he told me was that when someone was trying to pull King Baby shit, one of the others might call him on it by saying, “Wah!”

King Baby goes by other names as well. Probably best known is the Peter Pan Syndrome, from an 80s pop psych book of the same name. Years before that hit the bookshelves, though, writer Aldous Huxley produced a novel called Island, which talks about “dangerous delinquents” and “power-loving troublemakers” who are “Peter Pans.” In addition, he said, they are “boys who can’t read, won’t learn, don’t get on with anyone, and finally turn to the more violent forms of delinquency.” Huxley cited Adolf Hitler as an example.

King Baby syndrome is not an actual psychological thing. It is not covered in the DSM, the psychiatrists’ bible of mental illnesses and like conditions. But the DSM does include Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which shares some of the same characteristics:

• exaggeration of accomplishments
• saying they have done things they haven’t really done
• acting or feeling more important than others
• believing they are special and unique
• having a need to be admired all the time
• expecting to be treated differently, with more status than others
• exploiting others to get what they want or need
• pretending concern towards others or lacking empathy
• being jealous and competitive with others
• thinking that others are jealous of them
• acting arrogant and superior

So what do you do with a King Baby? My advice is to avoid him or her if possible. You can, like the people in my husband’s therapy groups, call the person out for such behavior, but it is not likely to do any good. Often it’s best just to cut King Baby out of your life. If you do, though, expect anger, blaming, and recriminations.

If you do have to live with a King Baby, perhaps the best thing you can do is to recognize the behavior when you see it happening and not fall into the trap of trying to meet King Baby’s every need. This won’t make any difference in King Baby’s behavior, of course. You’ll have to deal with pouting, sulking, poor-me talk, and even retaliation.

Because just as vampires never grow older, King Babies never grow up. They can’t and they won’t. So there.