Brandi Hayes
Miss Torrence
English 9
April 29 2014

A child called it

Child abuse has been a very upsetting subject for people to talk about. In many situations, child abuse may last a long time before it is reported to authorities, if it is ever reported. Dave Pelzer’s “A Child Called It” is a story based on a boy who was physically abused by his alcoholic mother and the torment he faced growing up. As a boy, his means of survival was through his faith in God. His abuse was a game to his mother, but hell for him. The games she played with David varied from stabbing him in the chest to starving him. His mother did not consider him a son but a slave and no longer a boy, he was an “it”. David had nothing and no one to turn to, but his dreams kept him alive, dreams of someone taking care of him, loving him and calling him son. It took him a long time to get out of his struggles, but he did. Before the abuse, David had perfect parents; he lived in the “good” neighborhood in Daly City California. David’s father was a San Francisco fire fighter. His mother was a woman who glowed with love for her children. She was also a “clean freak”, after feeding Dave and his two brothers she would dust, disinfect, scour, and vacuum everything. She never believed in doing anything half way and always told her boys to do their best at everything. David’s mother would make big dinner’s every night for the whole family and would give the boys cookies after dinner, and she would take them to the zoo or to parks. David loves the Russian river because it was the last vacation the family took before he became the “bad boy”. David was subjected to cruel games and unbelievable torture, which almost caused him death. To survive, David had to learn to play these games with his mother. Dave slept on an old army cot in the basement, and wore dirty clothes that were almost rags. He was forced to eat food that was so disgusting the dog wouldn’t even eat it. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she also made punishments for him, such as turning on the stove burner and laying him naked across the stovetop, and slamming his face into the mirror repeatedly, and forcing him to lay in ice cold baths for hours. While David would be standing in the kitchen doing dishes, David’s drunken mother would stagger in waving a knife around yelling “if you don’t getting these dishes done in time, I’m going to kill you!” in her drunken stopper she lost her balance and stabbed her son in the chest, denying David medical attention, he took care of the wound himself, even when it got infected. David’s only hope of rescue was his father, who was