A Child Called "It" is a really sad story about one of the worst child abuses cases in the nation. This book is kind of hard for me to read because the author's descriptions of the events that happens to him are so in depth and specific. One question that came to me while reading this book is if Dave Pelzer's father was at fault just as much as his mother was for the abuse that happened to him.
In this story, Dave's mom beats, starves, and tortures him as a young child. She rarely ever feeds him, constantly beats him, and performs terrible acts of torture to him. In one part of this book, Dave's mother forces him to take of his clothes and almost makes him lay on the stove so she can burn him. She doesn't take it this far, but she does hold his arm over the burning fire for a while. Luckily Pelzer's father and brothers come home in time before she can take it any further. For some reason only Dave gets abused while his other brothers are treated completely fine.
David's father doesn't actually abuse him, but he doesn't do a thing to stop it either. He pathetically tries to talk his wife into not beating their son or to give him food, but after a few effortless tries, he just gives up. What sucks is that Dave looks up to his father and views him as a hero. His dad keeps telling him that he will get him away from his crazy mother, but it doesn't seem like he is doing anything to make such a thing come true. What really upsets me it that David's father is a fire fighter and he can't have any guts to stand up to his crazy wife to protect his son. She does seem pretty scary, but if he is that afraid of her he could easily contact the police. He IS a witness of all the horrible abuse that is going on in his house and if he hates it so much he could try to do something to stop it instead of just leaving to go to work. In my opinion I actually think Dave's dad is a very selfish person. It's pretty obvious that he uses his job as an excuse to escape all the madness that goes on at his house, but if he stayed there he probably knows that Dave won't get abused as bad as if he wasn't home. Throughout this book Dave mentions a few times how he knows that his mom won't torture him so bad when his dad and brothers are home. However, more and more his father starts spending more time at work.
One part of this book that is still unclear to me is what made Dave's mother switch from being nice to be a completely horrible person? In the first chapter of this book (titled Good Times) Dave's mom seems completely normal, loving, and nice. She would take her family on trips to the lake, cook great meals for all of them and would treat each and every one of her sons equally. However, all of a sudden she just became a lazy bum and did nothing but get drunk, watch TV, and yell at Dave all day. It's kind of clear where the abuse towards Dave starts. At the beginning, she makes all of her kids search for things she lost, but pretty soon she begins to single out Dave. Her crazy behavior is spontaneous. She's been an alcoholic since she was 13 so it isn't like her excessive drinking was anything new. What ever the reason her behavior is NOT okay what soever. Who the hell would ever treat there own child such a way. I hate this woman!
No comments:
Post a Comment