A CHILD CALLED 'IT' Dave Pelzer
Book
A CHILD CALLED ‘IT’ Dave Pelzer
Published 1995
A Child Called ‘It’ is a memoir about a young Californian boy being abused by his mother during the 1960s and 70s. This book won’t take you long to get through it, however; the topic is heavy; it’s about child abuse and also brings awareness of what happens to a lot of children behind closed doors.
Dave’s family lived in Daly City, a middle-classed suburb in San Francisco; his mother was a socialite who quickly had five sons throughout the 1960s.
Pelzer alleged that his mother was an alcoholic who beat him, starved him, treated him like a slave, forced him to drink ammonia, stabbed him in the stomach, burned his arm on a gas stove, and made him eat his own vomit.
He stated that his father enabled his mother’s behaviour by not reacting. His brothers who witnessed the abuse were in a more favourable position with their mother. His brother later stated that he was ‘more fearful that she might kill me than of the possibility of my brother bleeding to death.’
Pelzer was sent to a foster family aged 12, in 1973 and not long after his father left his mother.
A Child Called ‘It’ was published after his mother died in 1992, only six people attended her funeral - five sons and their grandmother. The family members have very little contact with each other’s and there’s also a lot of resentment between them. They all agree that their mother was a drunk and the family home was dysfunctional.
His brother Richard published his own book which affirms Dave’s story and said he was abused once Dave was sent into foster care. His younger brother Stephen denied that Dave was abused and the reason why Dave was sent into foster care was because he started a fire and was shoplifting. Dave’s grandmother said she believed that her daughter abused Dave, but not as bad as he described in his book.
Dave later stated his mother should never have children.
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