My mom let me and my brother breast-feed until we were each about 5 years old. She let us touch and play with her breasts for years after that. She never told us what sex was, and later when I found out, I felt revulsion at the memories of how I touched, and wanted to touch, my own mother. Now I'm 18, a senior in high school, and I have a little sister who’s 9 years old. Mom breast-fed her until really late, and now my sister feels my mother's breasts the way my brother and I did. My sister is my mom's last child, and my mother persists in treating her as a baby. My mother refuses to consider she could be encouraging inappropriate impulses in my sister. When I tell my mother that I'm grossed out and that my sister's too old for this, she won't listen. But I don't want my sister to have the same revulsion at her own memories and confused feelings that I suffered. I'm so disgusted it's keeping me up at night. What should I do?

—No More Mother Love

Some of what Prudie says:

Your mother sounds like a sexual predator disguising herself as the ultimate attachment parent. Because there are so many more male molesters, it’s easier for sick women to get away with it. Being an earth mother is the perfect ruse that allows your mother to use her own children to gratify her disturbed impulses. It’s awful to look back on your childhood with shame, but it’s a good thing that you feel revulsion for what happened to you. It shows you are able to distinguish appropriate boundaries, see how you were manipulated, and mourn for your childhood. You don’t mention a father (or fathers), so I’ll assume he is not in the picture to provide help. As painful as it is to contemplate turning your mother in to the authorities, for the sake of your sister, that’s what’s you should do.

You should continue your healing with a therapist who specializes in sexual mistreatment. This should help you feel comfortable with the normal sexual impulses your mother cruelly exploited.

Dear Prudie: My mom let me play with her breasts for years. Now she’s doing it to my sister. - Slate Magazine