GM

A Child Called It
Victimology
A Child Called It is a true story written by Dave Pelzer and published by Health
Communications Inc. in Deerfield Beach Florida in 1995. The book is truly a gut wrenching,
horrifically, and yet accurately, recounted tale of extreme woe. It is a story about Daves
treatment at the hand of his Mother, and his subsequent escape from the years of tear inducing
child abuse. Tear inducing on the behalf of the reader, the amount of pain Dave himself went
through is a different matter entirely; in fact to call it tear inducing for him would be an
understatement, while calling what his mother did to him child abuse also seems like the
understatement of the century and feels like a failure of the English language to adequately
describe something. The story goes as such, and although the book starts with his rescue, this
will be in the order of the actual condensed timeline of his life. Dave started his life off like a
normal child. He resided in California, near San Francisco in an area called Daly City with his
fireman father Stephan, his mother Catherine, and his two brothers Stan and Ronald. Dave
described his family in the years before his abuse as the Brady Bunch family, indicating they
were perfect. Dave started to get a few hints that something was wrong with his mother
however. Initially she started by acting strange and doing things that didnt seem to make sense,
like she was someone else. He gives an example of her painting the steps for her husband.
Then she starts to lay down more often, starts to drink more and more, and starts showing
general signs of depression while expressing more and more anger. Eventually this gives way to
what can only be described as a sort of progressive mental breakdown into true insanity in the
mothers brain. What is discipline starts turning into abuse when Dave keeps getting caught
essentially just being a child doing the normal things a child does.

The abuse starts out lightly, by isolating him and blaming him for things, and escalates
over time into the most horrific abuse imaginable. She dislocates his arm, she starts beating him
and blaming him for things he never did, starts by telling him how worthless he is and tells him
that he has made her life hell. She progresses in her obvious mental illness and continues to up
the frequency and intensity of the psychological and physical abuse until it reaches and
surpasses the modern definition of torture. The abuse is always under the pretext of it being
because Dave did something bad, but it is obviously because there is something seriously
wrong. Here is where Dave realizes he can do things and have some modicum of control over
his lifes course. Here in the midst of the abuse is where unfortunately Dave also learns that
there is no one going to save him and the father figure he looked up to and idealized was
nothing but an amazing coward. Dave puts up with a tremendous amount of abuse that
combines intense neglect through starving isolation and deprivation of basic needs including
play time and going outside, with the physical abuse of burning and punching, yanking and
throwing, threatening and hitting, to the point where she throws a knife (though it is an accident
apparently I am not sure still if that is just how his brain is protecting his mother, knives are very
hard to throw and cut something) that cuts his stomach and makes him continuously clean the
bathroom with incredibly toxic chemical combinations and even makes him eat his brothers
fecal matter. Eventually the school catches on and is able to get him into foster care because
his worthless father has already left his mother and the bruises and lies to the school finally
catch up to him. He has more books on the rest of his life that detail his struggles and his
achievements that are not included in this book however.
When asked why Daves mother chose him Im not sure the answer is that obvious or
that the answer is really found in the book at all. It seems random except I believe there has to
be a reason, be it quantum fluctuations in her brain stem or not, however I can venture a guess
from my personal professionally informed opinions and from the research I have done into

trauma, abuse and family systems. It has been shown that a lot of time when a parent abuses a
child sexually they only stick to one child, even if that child has many siblings. For some reason
they focus all of their own pathology onto that child. Perhaps it is because that child reminds
them of their own vulnerability and innocence that was lost or that they have grown to hate, or
perhaps it is just a fluke. However if it has been shown in sexual abuse cases I wouldnt see
why it wouldnt happen in physical and mental abuse cases as well. I also believe Daves
mother may have chosen him based on the fact that he happened to get caught doing childish
things more than his other siblings and reacted in a way his genetics programmed him which
must have made his mother react the way she did, with specifically targeted increasing levels of
abuse. I also firmly believe that if we were able to investigate the pasts and specifically the
childhoods of both parents we would find similar traumatic histories, including physical sexual
and emotional abuse and certainly alcoholism (based on their behavior). I would guarantee that
actually, because it is a well-known fact that victims in childhood can and often become the
aggressors or better victims in adulthood. It is true when they say things do not exist in a
vacuum; there have to be reasons for these things to exist. Now either the mother had a horrible
and traumatic upbringing that caused so much damage to the regions of her brain that handle
feeling states and emotional regulation and decision making, or she has a horrible genetic brain
disease or tumor that just happened to express itself in such a way. There are no other options
really.
Now humans are designed to adapt and overcome everything in their environment in
order to survive. Dave also learned how to adapt to and survive his environment because he felt
the need to live and continue on. He never gave up, for some reason, and as such he learned
specific ways to survive. He first realized he could have some sort of control over the situation
when his mother was beating him and attempting to throw his body onto the lit stove he was
able to stall just long enough that his father came home. Though his father didnt actually rescue

him, because his father was a tremendously awful wimpy alcoholic coward and pathetic excuse
for a man, his father being there made it not OK anymore for his mother to try and kill him
apparently. That was the first time Dave realized that if he fought long enough to stay alive and
tried just hard enough he could continue to live. Dave learned that doing well in school allowed
him respite from the chores and beatings and was a pleasant distraction while allowing him time
to play outside at the schools recess. Dave also learned that if he did things quickly he could
survive long enough, and that if he acted certain ways sometimes his mother wouldnt do certain
things, though it was always just a slight tilt of the odds in his favor because she was such an
unpredictable monster in the worst sense of the word. Dave also learned how to lie, how to
make it so he could continue to survive without his mother finding out he told about their abuse
secret and make it just believable enough that he didnt get in any more trouble. His final
survival strategy was literally a physical strategy to stay alive. He learned how to steal food.
Because his mother was keeping food away from him under the pretense of him being bad it
became a necessity for him to learn through trial and error how to steal food. He stole from
wherever he could and in the proper amounts at the proper time so he could continue to survive.
He adapted and overcame and was able to eat just enough to survive the ordeal, like he was
able to figure out how to clean an infected wound on his own or create a makeshift gas mask
when he cleaned the bathroom.
Dave was finally saved when the teachers and associated school officials and school
nurse finally decided to move their proverbial behinds and do something that would have been
obvious to a 6 month old jaguar. The nurse documented all of the injuries and caught Dave in a
lie, because she was an adult and he was a child which should have made it easy, when he told
her her ran into a door accidentally then changed his story, then eventually told her the truth
again. Then he told her he was stabbed accidentally. And eventually the police came and picked
him up after Dave told his story again. Having some sort of compassion the teachers and

principal all tried to help and then Dave was let go with the police officer who finally called
Daves mother to let her know what was happening; that her son was being transferred to a
foster home or into the system and away from her. The policeman then led him outside the city
limits to the new area where he was going to live. Now I know at the time there werent many
child abuse cases and there wasnt the type of information out there but you dont have to be a
rocket scientist to see something and want to do something about it. I just wish the
professionals at that school were more willing to risk their jobs because a young childs life was
at stake (as well as the wellbeing of the other children).
In fact that was one of the parts that disgusted me the most in this book, that no one
decided to do anything. I guess Im more passionate or more willing to risk myself for others
because I realize there is only one go through in this world and you can change someone life
and make the world a better place if you do. Perhaps it was a different time but emotionally I
feel there is no real excuse. In fact, intellectually I know that this parenting system that Dave
grew up in was just a product of environmental and genetic factors, and that more likely than not
these victimizers, both active and passive, where once victims in their lives just like Dave. I also
logically know that because of the circumstances in their lives and their brain structure and so
called random events there is really no other outcome that could have happened; no free will
just make a better decision reset button. However, despite knowing all of that logically,
emotionally I am disgusted and enraged. I want to force people to do what is best, I want to be
able to control the environment in such a way that people like this cease to exist and stop
pumping out criminals. I want to shut down these abuse farms even if it means I might lose
something. That is what I have felt for a while, but the apathy displayed in this book just brings
about my constant desire to rage against the conditions of this world that are so plain to see and
are begging to be changed. My emotional side of me feels sick and awful and personally wants
this woman and her husband dead, tortured and killed, and her kids sent to extensive therapy

so they dont turn into monsters themselves, while the intellectual side of me knows that is an
improbable and inappropriate response that though it seems satisfying probably wouldnt be.
This story just reminds me of something I need very little help in being reminded of, that evil
exists and there is something we can do about it, but because of our brains many of us are too
focused inwards and towards survival to really make a difference. And finally I know, sadly, that
change takes a long time and the results of any good work wont be seen for generations. We
can only learn to hope more, and then hope to learn more I guess.