Using A Child As A Pawn Quotes

When you look in that mirror, do you see a person who uses your kids as a pawn in your quarrels with your partner? Do you try to get your kids to take sides, confide in them about adult issues, or manipulate them in your own domestic war? Ring any bells? If so, think how it is damaging your child. What will you do to change?

The worst implication of all is that God made that catastrophe happen as part of a grand, unrevealed plan, using a child and a woman as pawns in order to teach someone else about the strength of his power. When we tell these stories as if God were looking out for the woman and not for the child, we reinforce our personal sense of security. One person has God’s blessing; another doesn

from around the precious plants. The fresh air was exhilarating and John’s aunt chatted merrily about times gone by and what Italy had been like when she and John’s mother were children. ‘But that was before the war,’ she sighed. ‘It is far behind us.’ As Mary Anne pulled Mathilda’s blanket a little higher around the cherry-pink face, a thought occurred to her. ‘I think I have something that used to belong to your sister – perhaps to you too.’ ‘Oh?’ Maria eyed her quizzically. ‘Yes,’ said Mary Anne, and went on to tell her about the time John had come to borrow money against a silver crucifix that she’d guessed had belonged to his mother. ‘He’d wanted the money for Daw’s engagement and wedding ring. I gave him the money but never sold the cross on. I couldn’t do it somehow. I kept thinking that one day he might want it back.’ ‘You have this?’ said Maria, her eyes shining. ‘You remember it?’ Maria clapped her hands together. ‘Of course I do!’ ‘Michael found it in the ruins of the pawn shop. I still have it.’ She turned and looked with gratitude into Maria’s dark eyes. ‘You’ve been so kind to me. You must have it back.’ Maria’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘It is a pleasure. I cannot thank you enough.’ They sat on a park bench. Mathilda was sitting up, observing everything with unusual interest. ‘She’s a lovely child,’ said Maria. Mary Anne murmured a reply. Her eyes were elsewhere, her attention caught by a man in a trench coat walking along the path at the side of the bowling green. She fancied he had been staring at them. 19 Lizzie and the wing commander had been travelling between airfields, ‘co-ordinating events’ as Hunter liked to call it, when he’d spotted a dog fight in the distance. Streaks of white vapour trail criss-crossed the sky as the Messerschmitt and the Spitfire locked horns above the English countryside. In their midst was a low-flying bomber, the bone of contention between the two. Hunter got out a pair of binoculars. Lizzie shaded her eyes with her hand. ‘They’re chasing the bomber.’ ‘Correction,’ Hunter said slowly. ‘The Spitfire is chasing the

When my mother’s antique diamond ring from her grandmother disappeared along with the tennis bracelet Ollie had given her, my mother fired our cleaning lady. But the suspicion lingered: would Ollie really have taken the jewelry? My father went to as many pawnshops as he could find in a sixty-mile radius. He came home empty-handed, bereft. He couldn’t shake the image of all that stuff in those stores: wedding bands, retirement watches, cameras, a bugle. He said it broke his heart, imagining people breaking off parts of themselves to survive. He briefly considered buying a pair of bronze baby shoes mounted on bookends. “Imagine having to pawn your child’s baby shoes?” he said. “They’re using the money to buy drugs,” my mother countered. “I wouldn’t shed any tears.” My father’s kindness and even keel had always been my mother’s ballast. Now those same qualities inflamed her. She wanted my father to react, to share her emotion, feel her indignation and frustration. Of course, he was heartbroken that his beautiful daughter was locked away in a loony bin. For as long as he could, my father would rescue Olivia, bail her out, wire her money, take her to a different hospital, bring her home.