I myself only realize it lately more and more with each time I go over our history together. I sometimes burst in this feeling of frustration because I can’t do anything about it. His mom was sniffing heroin when he and his twin brother were in her womb. That made them very vulnerable to becoming addicts themselves in their life. So they did, both of them, when they became adolescents.
Throughout the reading you will wonder how someone could treat their child the way he is treated and gives you a different perspective on child abuse. You feel sorry for him and disappointed at his mother’s parenting skills. Throughout the book David is abused by his mother. He is stabbed, starved to death, and even locked in a bathroom with just the smell of ammonia. There was times when David thought he would never make it and that he was going to die, because of all
2. How did the methods of early structuralists and functionalists differ? Name a psychologist that took each approach. 3. Contrast Sigmund Freud’s view of human nature with the view of Abraham Maslow.
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
Billy’s problem is that he always fears his mother. Nurse Ratchett would always threaten to tell his mother in order to keep control of him. His fear of his mother caused him to stutter and to act younger than he actually is. After he has sex
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
His own brothers begin to take the role of his mother treating him like dirt. Dave’s mother is in the middle-age stage of generativity vs. stagnation which falls back on reaching satisfaction within career, family, and other civic interests. This is when she starts developing psychotic issues along with an addiction to alcohol. She hasn’t reached satisfaction, so she begins to turn insane performing abuse on her
His father died when he was about 5 years old and his mother could not take care of him so she sent him and his siblings to an orphanage. The orphanage was a place of brutality where he was exposed to regular beatings and sadistic acts of brutality. As a form of punishment, his teacher would make the children strip down in front of the classroom where they would endure a beating. This is an act that would normally have a negative effect on a child, but Albert seemed to have enjoyed it. He began to get sexual pleasure from it and would get erections every time he was whipped.
There are multiple testimonies that have stated the contamination causing health problems in the individuals and families of the town. A Farmville resident and father of the James family has stated that his young son is constantly affected by asthma attacks due to the contaminated air. The manure odor from the CAFOs has created breathing difficulties for him along with constant headaches. He is unable to go outside without being bombarded by respiratory ailments. The Sykes family gets their water from a personal drinking well, but Mrs. Sykes has considered switching their family to bottle water or tediously boiling the well water.
More and more parents are letting go of their stern parenting not even giving their kids a small "spank" on the bottom which is NOT child abuse. They are afraid to do that these days because of these psycho moms and dads who call the DCFS and the police if they see or hear of you spanking your child. Children test their boundaries. Back in the day our parents used to REALLY SPANK us if we did something wrong and I bet we never did that thing again. These days the kids get time outs and the parents try talking to them as if they were mini adults and can understand and grasp exactly the point you are trying to get across to them.