Two major topics Sigmund Freud talked about are 1) fantasies of replacing a child’s own parents, and 2) sexual stage of family romance.
To start off, I completely disagree with Freud’s thinkings. Freud argued that as children grow up, their opposition towards their previous generation tend to accumulate, as well, to the point that children fantasize about replacing their actual parents with those whom they admire. Freud said that it all starts with feeling dissatisfied by their parents’ actions towards them, which builds the dissatisfaction into critical analysis of their parents. Eventually, the children start forming low opinions of their parents and start replacing them by those who the children think are of higher social standing than their real parents. I completely disagree with this because for a fact, I know that my parents are one of the strictest parents compared to those of my friends’. What my friends’ parents allowed them to do, chances are, I will not be able to commit to the same actions. One example is sleeping over a friend’s house. Till now, I have never had a sleep over my friends’ house. While my friends were having a good time together, I was at my own home, thinking about how I wished to be hanging out with them. During these times, I did get angry as to why my parents had to be the way they are and be unfair. I may have criticized them as to their harsh rules but, I have never, for once, wished that they were never my parents; nor have I ever fantasized that I had one of my friends’ parents as mine. Therefore, I cannot agree with Freud’s thinkings as I did not feel what Freud argued for.
Secondly, Freud argued that at a certain age, once discontent with their parents, children tend to have desire to bring their mother into situations of secret infidelity and into secret love-affairs. Reading that sentence not only surprised me but also made me wonder if some children actually wished that upon their parents. No matter how harsh my parents were in their upbringing of my brother and me, I had never wished that my mother was in a secret love affair with someone. Whenever they had disagreements and fought, I hoped dearly that those fights will not break them apart. If worse come to worse, they wouldn’t talk to each other as much. During those times, I sincerely wished that they would reconcile as fast as possible so that things would be back to normal and not as awkward when conversing with either of them.
As a result, I do not agree with Freud’s thinkings for I did not feel what he advocated for, and also, did not further my understandings of both family relations and why I felt the way I did during my childhood.
-Tun