Instead, we sacrifice the children, figuring they’ll be fine in the end. There is no way we are willing to give up our home or our lifestyle, no, that simply wouldn’t do. We figure we cannot possibly replace our 401k plan, but our kids, well, they’ll get over it.

Is that how we’re treating our children as well? Often, yes. It is therefore considered the least valuable and the most expendable. It can’t move around very well and it is very easily captured. That is, there isn’t much that a pawn can do. Each interaction is part of a complicated series of maneuvers, all designed to immobilize the opponent.įurther, looking back at the role of a pawn in the game of chess, it is the least flexible as far as range of motion. If that doesn’t, perhaps we must use a lawyer to try to accomplish our goal.

We use money when we have a great deal of it and where it would be most effective and when it doesn’t work, we might break out the tears or some verbal threats. They may use money, lawyers, friends, family, status, location, manipulating skills, negotiating skills, scare tactics, and even their children.īack to the game, each player uses all their resources in a complex series of steps, employing sophisticated strategy to use all the resources most effectively. Each ex-spouse has a variety of resources to use. That is, each player has a variety of resources to employ in order to immobilize their opponent. Each player has not one, but many pieces to use to accomplish the goal. Isn’t that what many ex-spouses are trying to do? Immobilize their former partner? They would like to prevent him or her from moving up in a job, from moving in or out of a house or maybe from moving in or out of a state or city they would like to prevent the ex from moving on to a new relationship, and so on. That is, the object is to immobilize the opponent. The object of chess is to completely surround the opponent’s king so that it cannot move at all without being captured. Obviously, the cliché has it’s origin in the game of chess. I think we say that, knowing full well that it means something bad is going on, but right now, I’d like to really consider how that phrase was coined and what it truly means to those children who are being treated as pawns. We often hear it said that divorced parents are using their children as pawns.

What does it mean to pawn something