In Family Romances, Sigmund Freud talks about the connection a child has with his parents and his need to be liberated from them. Freud describes this developmental process as both necessary and painful. “For a small child his parents are at first the only authority and the source of all belief. The child’s most intense and most momentous wish during these early years is to be like his parents (that is, the parent of his own sex)” (237). My first thought of these sentences from the text is that a child’s perception of their parents is that they are big fish in a small pond. As the child matures and his world expands, he begins to see that here are flaws in his parents and that there are other better options available. Freud also mentions that a boy is more likely to feel hostile impulses towards his father rather than his mother. I think this can be attributed to the fact that as a parent, they have the responsibility of “molding” another human being and the parent of the same sex is more vocal in this process because they have already walked the road the child would one day walk as well. This is where, I believe, the struggle for individuality takes place. A child may not appreciate that they are worked on like a project nor do they want to be a reflection of someone else. This is where the child feels the need to separate from the parent’s grasp in order to become an independent individual. I think the fantasies, that Freud says are created, are to negate this newfound perception of the child’s parents. The fantasies are to bring them back to a state of mind where they have an admirable figure with no flaws to emulate in life.