Just as Communism begat Objectivism, an extremely destructive victimization often causes a reaction just as intense (and destructive) but flipped one-eighty in the opposite direction.

“The Devil sends sins in matched opposing pairs, so that in fleeing one we embrace the other.” — either C.S.Lewis or G.K.Chesterton

“When a drunk falls off his donkey and climbs back on, often as not he’ll fall right off on the other side.” — attributed to Martin Luther

Just some thoughts, some of us do well with a checklist. The only thing worse than being in an abusive situation for a time is staying in one until it is too late. There is nothing worse than too late.

I still recall how when my older dd was five and my younger dd was a few months old, I stopped and listened to dd1 and heard her saying that she felt like I was treating her like my slave. And I realized that I had indeed been making all kinds of demands that she drop whatever she was doing and run and fetch things for me, while I sat holding the baby.

Not that I sat all day, but I’d “finally” finish whatever household tasks I needed to do and sit or lie down to nurse, and then realize I didn’t have a clean diaper or wipes or what-have-you close by, and call for dd1 to bring it.

Around this time I read and article on the site joyfullyrejoycing.com/, where the author challenged another mother’s insistence that she “needed” her older child to help her in certain ways because she had a new baby. I realized that, hey, when dd1 was a baby and it was just the two of us, I managed to “fetch” whatever things I needed for myself even though I had a baby in arms. If I could do so much for myself back then, why not now?

So I made a new resolution to be my own “errand girl,” and also to show more willingness to serve my older dd in the ways that I’d been expecting her to serve me. After all, servanthood and mutual submission work both ways. If it’s okay for me to sometimes tell my children, “I’m really tired so if you want such-and-such you’ll need to make/get it yourself” (and it IS okay), then it’s also okay for them to sometimes say the same thing to me.

I still don’t honestly know if it fit the guidelines of abusive behavior for me to be always asking dd1 to run and fetch for me — all that matters is that she was not happy in this role. She IS happy now that we have an honest relationship where we sometimes do stuff for each other and sometimes say, “I’m sorry but I’m really in the middle of something right now.”

Thankfully, I was able to make amends when the oldest of my 8 were all still teens and they were amazingly understanding and forgiving! And the first 4 are launched as I think grown “arrows” should be