Sunday, February 9, 2014

"A Screwtape Letter to An Unappreciated Mom"

Via The Anchoress

"The original Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis reveals a series of fictitious letters between Screwtape, a senior demon, and his nephew, Wormwood, a demon-in-training, about the tricks of the demonic trade of tempting a “patient” (i.e., Christian) away from “the Enemy” (i.e., God).    In this tremendous adaptation, a blogger reveals a previously undiscovered letter from Screwtape to Wormwood..."
My Dear Wormwood,

I was thrilled to hear you have been making progress with the mother. You have a good lead, from what I hear. She’s feels over-worked, unappreciated, and discouraged? I’m so glad to hear it. If you tread carefully, this can be a great opportunity. With the kids waking her up every hour last night, we already have an advantage. A tired Mom makes for a more emotional Mom, and an emotional Mom is a vulnerable one.

I do have a few tips. First, aim your best efforts at her marriage.

As you know, we cannot do much with a unified marriage. Luckily for us, a cranky and exhausted wife can do wonders to change that. We must convince her that her husband is no longer the friend and ally she first married. Instead, we must reveal every sin and selfish habit, especially drawing attention to his thoughtless actions (mal-intended or not) against her.

Sometimes it’s the less obvious things, things the husband doesn’t even realize, that we can use to offend her the most. When he comes home from work and dumps his things on the counter nearest the door (instead of hanging his coat or putting away his keys), let her think of it as a direct assault on her work as a homekeeper. When he treks mud in with his shoes, let her think it is because he does not love her. Such extremes of thought may seem ridiculous to you or I, but to the exhausted mortal woman, it can seem possible. Your goal is to make her think the husband does not notice, or even better, that he does not care about her efforts at home.

Secondly, do what you can to keep her focused on her troubles and pains. Remind her how much her back aches, how draining the children were all day, and how many undone tasks still beckon her. Do not let her wonder what difficulties her husband faced that day or whether his back might also be aching. Valuing others above oneself is one of those silly, though strangely effective, tactics of the Enemy. If she stops to make him a cup of coffee, the next thing you know she’ll be rubbing his shoulders and flirting with him on the couch. It can progress out of your control if you’re not careful.

Along those lines, be sure the Mother starts to value productivity above everything else. Have her wake up early and work non-stop until bedtime. If the husband relaxes in the evening with an hour of computer gaming, be sure the wife notices the pile of unfolded laundry or unswept floors. Do not let her grab a book and relax alongside her husband. Diligence, often one of the Enemy’s virtues, when overdone can be used to our advantage as well. Convince her that as long as there is a shred of work to be done (and there always is), no one should be resting. Then, as she folds and sweeps and he sits, you can introduce the sweet bitterness of resentment.

A word of caution here. Remember, the love of a husband can be dangerous to our cause. If he senses her unhappiness, he may begin to help or (even worse) show her affection. This is where previously planted seeds of resentment can be guided into full bloom. Make her think that his displays of affection are because he “only wants one thing”. Do not let her view his help with the dishes (or kisses or cuddling) as having pure motives. If he shows his desire for her, convince her that she is being used…
READ THE REST HERE.

14 comments:

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

One of life's most valuable talents is being readily able to get other people to reward you for doing the right thing.

A big part of that is lowering your expectations while increasing your performance.

It also helps to have nice teeth.

Shouting Thomas said...

Feminism!

I knew it was the work of the devil.

Michael Haz said...

Like!

Sydney said...

That was a great read. Could see myself in some of that.
It's not my intent to derail this thread, but this Screwtape riff on marriage points to something in the whole Woody Allen/Mia Farrow fiasco that really bothers me, but that you never see anyone bring up in the blogs I read. These two people who were never able to bring themselves to commit to each other in marriage, and who, if Allen defenders are to be believed, didn't even live under the same roof, were allowed to adopt two children together. By what logic would society assume they could commit to raising children together if they can't commit to each other?
They were just lovers. Two people using each others bodies for pleasure. Is it any surprise that one of them moved on to a younger available body and sees no harm in it?

Michael Haz said...

And likewise is it no surprise that the other one used men who were more than twice her age? And who then railed against an older man marrying a much younger woman?

The reality is that this couple should not have been allowed to adopt children, but apparently received the 'celebrity exemption' from the reality others would have had to accept.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Sidney, you read my mind.

Shouting Thomas said...

@Michael

The kind of relationship these people had is celebrated by the media and academia.

Allen and Farrow were darlings of liberals and feminists.

Allen, despite Althouse's denials, was the ideal New Man of feminists, self-negating, wimpy... the shambling nebbish. When I was in college and when I was a young adult, feminist women constantly held up Allen to me as their ideal of what the New Man should be.

Then, the New Man transgressed sexually. He committed the sins that most outrage liberals and feminists. His New Man act was supposed to ensured that he wouldn't act like that sinful Old Man.

Feminists keep ignoring the reality that their New Men heroes are almost always sex creeps and predators... like Bill Clinton, Anthony Weiner, Eliot Spitzer, etc.

I haven't watched an Allen movie in decades because his movies are propaganda for the liberal Upper West Side sex agenda... serial monogamy.

ricpic said...

We're all unappreciated. Get used to it!

edutcher said...

Shout beat me, but, yeah, nails it to the wall.

Gaia is Satan.

Whoda thunk.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Great article. People have been conditioned to think of themselves first and take false umbrage at any slights to their inflated egos. It is a me me ME ME world.

As to Mia Farrow and Woody Allen.....we are supposed to care about these disgusting people?....why? Why should we even be interested in this when there are many more important things going on that affect all of us directly.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The reality is that this couple should not have been allowed to adopt children, but apparently received the 'celebrity exemption' from the reality others would have had to accept.

But there really is no "celebrity exception".

It all comes down to a money exception.

We are told to believe that financial wherewithal makes people fitter parents. Is that assumption a good one, though?

Does it necessarily make for adults who appreciate and do the best with what they have, rather than projectively shrieking about their spouse's supposed inadequacy in this regard or that?

There should be a psychological test for secure personalities before kids enter the picture. But then, I'd put the percentage of wanna-be mothers who wish for children as a false way to improve their own poor self-esteem at at least 50%. Having kids makes them feel important and wanted, and therefore upends the intended utility of the parent-child relationship entirely. And then the man has no use so guess what he goes and does.

There's not much reality tv you have to watch to understand the pervasiveness of this particular American "family" dynamic.

Sydney said...

Dust Bunny Queen,
It does matter in the sense that society has a stake in who we allow to become adoptive parents. I don't know how much state regulation there is in private adoptions. Do people like Mia Farrow and Woody Allen strike up private arrangments that are managed only by lawyers, or does the state regulate these things? What about foreign adoptions?
What Rhythm and Balls says is true. It is the wealth that enables these serial adopters regardless of suitability. If the state does regulate the adoption industry, what are we saying as a society when we so obviously value wealth over family stability as criteria to adopt?

deborah said...

I find the faux letter tedious.

deborah said...

"As of February 2014, Mia Farrow has thirteen living children (four biological, nine adopted) and nine grandchildren.[34]
Farrow and former husband André Previn have three biological children (twins Matthew and Sascha, and Fletcher). In 1973 and 1976, respectively, they adopted Vietnamese infants Lark Song Previn and Summer "Daisy" Song Previn,[35] followed by the adoption of Soon-Yi (born c. October 8, 1972) from Korea around 1978. Soon-Yi's precise age and birth date are not known, but a bone scan estimated her age as being between 5 and 7 years old at the time of her adoption.[36]

Farrow and Woody Allen adopted Moses "Misha" Farrow and Dylan Farrow. Dylan was known as "Eliza" for a while and is also known as "Malone".[37][38] In 1987, Farrow gave birth to their son Satchel "Seamus"[39] O'Sullivan Farrow,[40] later known as Ronan Farrow. In a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, Farrow stated that Ronan could "possibly" be the biological child of her first husband Frank Sinatra, with whom she claims to have "never really split up".[41]

...In 1992, Mia Farrow alleged that Dylan Farrow, then aged seven, told her mother that she had been sexually abused by Allen.

...Between 1992 and 1995, Farrow adopted six more children: Tam Farrow (born 1979); Kaeli-Shea Farrow, now known as Quincy Maureen Farrow; Frankie-Minh (born 1991); Isaiah Justus (born 1992); Thaddeus Wilk Farrow (born 1988); and Gabriel Wilk Farrow, adopted in 1995[citation needed] and named after Elliott Wilk, the judge who oversaw Farrow's 1993 legal battle with Allen.[50] Her daughter Tam Farrow died of heart failure in 2000 at the age of 19 after a long illness.[51] On December 25, 2008, her daughter Lark Previn died at the age of 35.[52]"

Farrow's children