Sigmund Freud’s “Family Romances” discusses the inner conflict that arises when a person tries to establish their individuality amidst familial and generational pressures. According to Freud, children start out as wanting to emulate their parents as these are the first people they know. However, as “intellectual growth” increases, a child starts comparing their parents to others and therefore takes part in the critical thinking process when categorizing their own parents’ personalities and behavior (237). This is the period where children begin to interpret even a small degree of hostility from their parents as a slight against them and thus their desire to break free from their parents grows. The next stage involves imagining one’s parents as different people of a higher social status, which serves to rip away the foundations of a child’s origins. At this stage, a child ponders the differing roles each parent plays: the mother becomes a certain figure, but the image of the father remains uncertain. This is where Freud declares that the “family romance undergoes a curious curtailment” since doubts arise about the father while the mother becomes cemented as part of the child’s origins (239). These disconnects between reality and fantasy serve as the child’s way of mourning the days when they put their parents on a pedestal and saw them as their only source of authority and beliefs. This connects back to the beginning of the passage, in which Freud says that it is important for a child to understand that their parents’ views can be separate from a their own views of the world, and that this liberation can only be born out of the conflict of identity the child faces as they grow up.