She was a mother who played tortuous, unpredictable games that left him nearly dead. He had to learn how to play his mother's games in order to survive because she no longer considered him a son, but a slave; no longer a boy, but an "it." A Child Called “It” describes one of the worst documented cases of child abuse in California history. Dave lived I a world of starvation, cruelty, and torture from the age of four until he was rescued by school officials at the age of twelve. In the following scene, Dave’s mother is yelling at him and tried to force him to lie on flames so she could watch
His parents’ marriage started to fall apart and that’s when things started to change. His mother felt that Dave was to blame for it and that’s when the abuse began. At first, Mother made him do every chore possible and didn’t let him talk to anyone but her. Mother
The mother became an alcoholic; an abusive alcoholic. First, she would just send the boys to look for items that the family didn’t even have, and punish them when they said they couldn’t find it. Then she singled David out, saying he was the “bad boy” and told the other boys that she was glad they weren’t like him. After awhile, she made up ridiculous chores for David to do before
She also starts to blame people for her miscarriage as well as herself. Mariam and Rasheed’s relationship soon starts to fade and they begin to lose interest in each other. Chapter 15 Rasheed starts to blame Mariam for the death of their unborn child. Everything Mariam says to him irritates him and Rasheed shows a major lack of interest in Mariam. Mariam tries to do whatever she can to please Rasheed, but none of her efforts seem to work.He begins to become overly abusive with Mariam and the abuse is consistent.
Stephanie Minton Professor Starr English 111 83N 27 January 2013 I am Adam Lanza’s Mother Liza Long has a horrible issue on her hands. Her 13 year old son has serious mental illness problems. The mental health problems are undiagnosed and throw him into violent rages. Long describes her day-to-day struggles with her son. Long writes “I love my son but he terrifies me.” Long’s son has threatened to kill her for wanting him to return over do library books.
Kim thought that since he was a doctor there he could get special treatment. Kim’s actions to the woman at the front start to make his ex-wife worry about his temper. With Kim’s reactions of him being impatient doesn’t really help him or Becky when he was in the room with Dr. Morgan. When he went to talk to Dr. Morgan he couldn’t control his temper “what the hell is it Dr. Morgan (Kim spat 56)”. Kim not thinking of his actions gets him into more trouble.
My book was on “A Child Called “It”—One Child’s Courage to Survive”, and I did a power point, throughout the book, Dave Pelzer narrates what he went through as a child and what struggles he faced. His mom was a hardcore alcoholic and treated Dave as the scapegoat to everything. If his mom and his dad got into an argument, she would summon Dave and release all her anger onto him. His whole entire childhood was basically what we call child labor, and with the harsh conditions Dave worked in was extremely unethical. One time while Dave was simply correcting his mom by telling her that he was at home the whole time instead of outside playing with his brothers, she took his arm and raised it over a fire—she told him to never talk back to her again
A Child Called “It” Throughout the book “A Child Called It” by Dave Pelzer, we come to learn, the main character, David suffers from child abuse. He receives this abuse from his mother. An emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother who hates him. She plays torturous, unpredictable games that left him nearly dead. Not only that, but she also physically & mentally abuses him.
First, he felt abandoned by Alice, the girl at the orphanage. A couple years later, he felt threatened by the dietician. After the toothpaste incident, “It never occurred to her that he believed that he was the one who had been taken in sin and was being tortured with punishment deferred and that he was putting himself in her way in order to get it over with, get his whipping and strike the balance and write it off” (123). He had a hatred for Mrs. McEachern because she tried to help him and he did not want help from anyone. She fixed him supper one night and he completely refused it, “While she watched him he rose from the bed and took the tray and carried it to the corner and turned it upside down, dumping the dishes and food and all onto the floor” (154-155).
But what really made my heart break was not only did they force these children into these institutions, but the abuse these children went through made me cry. While the book does not talk a lot about physical abuse, there were mentions of physical abuse such as a short chapter that described what was used to abuse these children. One mention that really broke my heart was when I read about a 13 year old boy who in 1912 was held, handcuffed and almost beaten into insensibility with a strap. The beating was so severe that the boy collapsed onto the floor and after 16 days of this abuse he was let with 26 scars on his body and eleven scars on his right arm (52). Reading about the beatings was bad enough, but when I read about the starvation and the types of food that were given to these children, I wanted to stop reading this book.