The following incident in connection with a young boy personally known to me amusingly illustrates the tendency to substitute an ideal parent for a (disappointing) real one, together with the religious and Narcissistic implications of this tendency. S. F., aged 7, insisted on being called Jesus Christ, in spite of the remonstrations of his father who pointed out to him among other things that Jesus Christ was the Son of God; to which S. F. replied "So am I." On receiving the reply: "You cannot be, for _I_ am your father," he retorted, "God is my real father, you are only my _professional_ father" (referring to the fact that his father was a "professional" musician).] CHAPTER VII ABNORMALITIES AND VARIETIES OF DEVELOPMENT--THE DEPENDENCE ASPECTS [Sidenote: Failure to become adequately independent of the parents] In the fixations and regressions we have so far considered we were concerned more or less exclusively with the love and hate aspects of the relations of the individual to his family. We must now turn to consider the influence of these fixations and regressions upon the rather wider problems of the individual's development and attitude towards life as indicated in Chapters IV and V. [Sidenote: is subject to less repression than love or hate fixations] The operation of any failures or abnormalities of development in this direction is for the most part subject to less intensive and far reaching repressions than are met with in the case of the love and hate aspects which we have just been considering. That this is so will be readily understood if we keep in mind the moral attitude generally adopted towards the failures of development of the kind dealt with in Chapter V. Laziness, inability to face the labours, troubles and difficulties of adult life, unduly prolonged dependence upon the efforts of the parents, these may indeed become objects of censure, especially when present to an unusually marked extent; but they arouse a degree of condemnation distinctly inferior to that which is occasioned by the display of feelings of hatred or of incestuous love towards the nearest relatives. The further characteristics of want of personal initiative or of exaggerated obedience to, and reliance on, the authority of the parents or their substitutes, may easily come to be regarded as virtues rather than as faults, since they are readily associated with the qualities (desirable enough in a reasonable degree and in so far as they do not interfere with the development of individual character) of conscientious execution of instructions and general amenability to discipline in nursery and school or, later on, in social, industrial or military life.