A Child Called “It”
Ashlee Hampton
In the book “A Child Called It” Dave Pelzer talks about his story as an abused child. It’s a very sad and tragic story I almost cried! I however really liked most of the book. I think it is very courageous that someone can come out and write about all these terrible and embarrassing things that happened to them when they were a child. The things that happened to Pelzer as a child were absolutely breath taking and made my blood boil. Pelzer was the only child out of all his siblings that were abused this way. He was abused both physically and verbally by the hand of his own mother. While Pelzer’s father was in the picture he did not do anything to help (besides try and feed him) young Dave. Which is so ridiculous, how on this earth can you sit there and watch an innocent child be hurt, let alone it being your own child! Pelzer was starved as a child which didn’t help him in school when he was caught stealing other kids food just to survive, but after he was caught he started stealing from stores during recess. Once his mother found out that he was eating she was furious! She made him throw up the content of his stomach and then made him eat it. Could you even imagine going through that? When Pelzer’s mother would let him eat he only had a very few seconds to do so! She would also have him perform chores in an impossible time frame before he could eat and if he didn’t finish in the right amount of time then no supper for him, his mother called these tasks “games”. It’s so horrible some of it is unbearable to even read. Starving wasn’t the only thing she did to torture young Pelzer she would constantly beat him. Dave said he wouldn’t even try to protect himself anymore because she would just hit his hands away and that her punches would last forever. You can tell throughout the book she was always abusive but it got extremely worse if she had been drinking or when she and her husband were fighting. Poor Dave got all his mother’s struggles taken out on him! Dave slept on a little cot down in the basement and most of the time just had to sit on the steps before his mother would dismiss him to do his chores or eat table scraps. As you could guess Dave didn’t have any friends he was a loner and his mother would make him wear the same cloths everyday making kids want to stay away from him. His mother then went on the make little Dave drink ammonia! Pelzer at this point really thought that he was going to die. Then he goes on to tell us about the accident of when his mother stabbed him. She never once took him to the hospital or doctor she just tried to take care of it herself, she even let Dave sit out and watch fireworks that night. After the accident with the knife Dave’s dad spent less and less time at home! It’s so dumb that the only time your son even feels comfort is when he is with you and you don’t even try to come around to help him or make him feel better. If you are going to sit there and know he is being abused you should at least try to be there for him and show him support and some type of love. Soon Dave’s mother’s friend got suspicious and his mother all of a sudden started being nice. This is where the book really through me off because I thought things were actually going to start getting better for Dave. I figured his mom had come to her senses or something and his life was going to change. But then a visitor came and that just so happened to be a social worker. So basically this terrible women tricked this poor kid into thinking his life would be getting better just so he would be nice and kind to the social worker without telling her what was really going on in the home. That’s just absolutely awful not only are you beating the poor kid but now you actually made him think for a second that everything was going to be alright and to have nothing to fear. Ruining his one chance to get out of