A Child Called It

4 Pages 970 Words

This book chronicles Dave’s childhood from 4 to 12 years of age. His life started off happy; he had a mother, father, and two brothers. They lived a good life; family dinners, vacations, love and affection. But around the time David Pelzer was 4 years old, his mother began a steady decline into the world of alcoholism and mental illness. Her behavior began to radically change. Her once sweet, loving nature became harsh. She would spend all day on the couch in her bathrobe watching television and drinking.

For reasons not explained in this book, Dave was targeted for all of his mother’s rage. The “discipline” began simply by making him sit in the corner for hours at a time. Then the beatings started, and she even pulled his arm out of socket. Dave’s father was a firefighter and stayed at the firehouse until his day off. Dave loved when his father was home because it meant he was “safe” because his mother had to be on her best behavior.

As his mother’s descent into the illness continued, the abuse worsened. She banished him to the basement and made him wear the same dirty clothes day after day. She was very fond of “games”. No, not Monopoly kind of games, but games borne of her twisted imagination. She would give him a list of chores and tell him that if he wanted to eat that day, he would have all of the chores done in an impossible amount of time. He would go as long as ten days at a time without eating.

Dave began stealing food from school, from stores, begging from the neighbors, eating left over food from the dog’s dish, etc. Once his mother caught on that he was getting food from other sources, she began making him puke everyday when he returned home, and God help him if he puked anything up! While the family ate dinner together every night, Dave was forced to stand in the basement. When dinner was over, he would be called upstairs to do the dishes for a meal that he didn’t get any of.

The sc...