Not to give away major spoilers or anything, but yes, the author is in favor of growing up. It's a third path between starry-eyed idealism and the bitter cynicism of adolescence. This book is in an annoying limbo for me. I think the author is making important points, and I want to run around to various friends and show them parts of the book and tell them to read it. But then again, a fair chunk of the book is devoted to explaining bits of Rousseau and Kant. And while this is Rousseau and Kant as "translated" by an intelligent modern author, they're still a pair of heavy-duty philosophers. There were parts of this book where I could only read for a short time, and then I had to go do something else and let the ideas sink in for a while. But even if you end up skimming those middle chapters, I think the book is worth the effort.