Child abuse is a serious issue around the world today. The problem continues to increase do to substance abuse, uneducated parents, a continuing cycle of abuse, and varying other factors. There are many different types of abuse, all ranging from neglect to physical abuse. Each type of abuse can have many different outcomes. The child can be emotionally or psychologically troubled later in life. The child may even die as a result of abuse if nothing is done to help the situation. Many of these issues and more are addressed in Dave Pelzer’s “A Child Called ‘It’”.
Many people do not know the many forms that child abuse can take. To many, child abuse it traditionally thought of as hitting or beating a child. If physical mistreatment is involved only then is it considered abuse. This is a misconception and incorrect. The technical definition of abuse involves using someone wrongly or improperly, hurting or injuring a person, forcing sexual activity on an unwilling party, or to speaking cruelly and maliciously to another individual. This definition covers all forms of abuse that can be afflicted on a child. While physical mistreatment is considered abuse, so is using an individual for unjust purposes. Adults who us children as proverbial emotional punching bags to express their own psychological issues is mistreatment and abuse. Sexually forcing oneself on an unwilling participant, especially a child, is abuse. It is also rape. Speaking harshly and insultingly to another is verbal abuse that can lead to psychological damage. Neglect is not mentioned in the technical definition but it is also considered abuse. Children need love, attention, affection, and nurturing from their caregivers. Denying them these things is a form of abuse. All of these forms of abuse can lead to a continuous cycle of abuse as well as a myriad of issues for the child later in life.
Dave Pelzer, the author of “A Child Called ‘It’” experienced severe emotional and physical abuse from the ages of four to twelve. He also experience neglect. Physical forms of abuse he experienced were harsh and traumatic. His mother starved him, often leaving him for hours and even days without food while she fed her other children. She also forced him to drink ammonia, burned his arm on the kitchen stove, forced him to eat his own vomit, and at one point even stabbed him. After stabbing him in the chest she left him to clean up his own wounds as if nothing had happened. In a more horrific scenario, his mother locked him in the bathroom with a mixture of Clorox and ammonia. The room was not ventilated well and the fumes nearly killed him after burning his esophagus. Pelzer was also beaten by his mother with chains, brooms, a dog chain, and her fists. Emotional trauma came from his mother only referring to him as “boy” or “it”. Pelzer had a name that his mother refused to use, further ostracizing him from the rest of the family and making him feel more inferior than the physical abuse was already making him feel. The fact that he was targeted out of all of his siblings could also be considered emotional abuse. Pelzer experienced neglect from both of his parents. Though starvation is a physical form of abuse because it was intentional it is also neglect. Pelzer’s father was aware of the abuse but did nothing to stop it, unwilling to risk the backlash he would experience at the hands of his insanely cruel wife. If it were not for Pelzer’s teachers he would have been entirely alone.
Given the amount and severity of the abuse Pelzer experienced, the question is why did he not speak out against it? Why did he not try to find help or seek a trusted adult with which to tell this secret? One reason could be confusion. Pelzer explains in the book that the first memories of his mother are of love and trust. His mother doted upon him like any mother would upon her child, lovingly and admiringly. She was a safe place for him to grow and play. Suddenly, and with no real reason or explanation, at the age of four Pelzer began to be abused by his mother in horrific ways. Perhaps he did not seek help because he remembered the mother that had been and wanted to protect her. Another reason that Pelzer may never call the police or tell the social workers about what is really going on is because of the family wide participation in his abuse. His mother was not the only one abusing him all the time; his brothers also joined in. Pelzer’s brothers encouraged their mother to abuse him as well as abused Pelzer themselves. Pelzer’s father shockingly did nothing to stop the abuse. He did not report the happenings, nor did he stop the members of his family from abusing Pelzer. In essence he is just as guilty as Pelzer’s mother and brothers.
Clearly though, as the book goes on, it becomes clear that Pelzer’s real motivation for not telling anybody about the abuse is because he has entered a war with his mother, saying things like “Mother can beat me all she wants, but I haven’t let her take away my will to somehow survive.” (Pelzer, 78) and ““I told myself no matter what she did I would not let the bitch take me down.” (103). Pelzer’s mother would starve him and he would act out in defiance against the starvation, as if it did not impact him. Later he would sneak into the kitchen and rob the family of a Hungry Man TV dinner, which he would eat secretly in the garage. Scenes like this became small celebrations of victory for Pelzer throughout the book; they were a symbol of his triumphs over his mother; she would not break him and he would not ever tell because they she would know she had broken him. He seems determined in many passages of the book to prove to his mother that though she intends to kill him, she never will.
Child abuse is a prevalent and serious issue across the globe. Unfortunately, stories like that of “A Child Called ‘It’” do exist. The motivation behind the abuse can vary. In David Pelzer’s case, his parents were both alcoholics. The book never says anything for certain but his mother does appear to have some psychotic tendencies that enabled her to snap suddenly and take her wild aggressions out on her four-year-old son. The effects of the abuse can be read about in his later novels but the test of the human spirit is very clear in “A Child Called ‘It’”. Though child abuse is unforgivable and damaging, there is resilience in children and a desire to survive that is unparalleled.
References
Pelzer, D. (1993). A Child Called "It". Chicago: Health Communications, Inc.
