A Child Called It: One Child’s Courage to Survive

“Mother enjoys using food as her weapon.”

Dave’s mother wields power over her children by controlling how and what they eat. In Chapter 1 Dave describes his intense hunger. After punishment, Dave’s mother “rewards” him by allowing him to eat his brother’s leftover cereal.

“Usually I’m a very good student, but for the past few months I gave up on everything in my life, including escaping my misery through my school-work.” 

Dave excels in school despite his difficult home life. He uses his studies as a way to escape the abuse he experiences at home. However, even at school Dave faces discrimination from his fellow students and at times even his teachers, who shun him for his visible poverty.

“I felt special when he winked at me and called me ‘Tiger.’”

Dave introduces the reader to his father, Stephen Joseph. Stephen is characterized as a warm, supportive, and archetypal father. He works hard in a stereotypically masculine profession as a firefighter, and he seems to perfectly complement Dave’s creative, loving, stay-at-home mother, Catherine.

“Mom always had ideas, and she always took command of all family matters. Once, when I was four or five years old, Mom said she was sick, and I remember feeling that she did not seem to be herself at all.”

Dave recalls a manic episode when his mother frantically paints the garage steps red before collapsing on the couch. This story stands out in a chapter otherwise dedicated to a calm, loving portrayal of his mother Catherine. It seems to foreshadow Catherine’s mental deterioration.

“She didn’t believe in doing anything halfway. Mom often told us that we must always do the best we could, and whatever we did.” 

Dave recalls the early lessons that his mother imparts to him and his siblings, despite her later abuse. This serves to paint a more nuanced portrait of Catherine and explain why the adult Pelzer harbors fond memories of his early childhood.

“No matter what the family was doing, she somehow came up with a constructive lesson; that we were not usually aware that we were being taught.”

Dave remembers Catherine using the pregnancy of one of their pet cats to teach him and his siblings about the birth process. This anecdote shows Catherine’s early aptitude for and love of motherhood, and her manner as a teacher to her sons. It also reinforces her position as the family’s leader when the boys are little.

“That year, standing in the yard, I remember seeing Mom cry. I asked her why she was sad. Mom told me she was crying because she was so happy to have a real family.” 

Catherine is overwhelmed by a particularly magical Christmas. Her tears of joy at having a functional nuclear family suggest that Catherine also endured childhood trauma, which bolsters the theme about cycles of abuse.

“Without speaking a word, Mom must have felt my fear. She looked down at me and held my hand ever so softly.” 

Despite later becoming a source of fear for her sons, Catherine is intuitive and loving early in motherhood. She displays an ability to anticipate her children’s needs.

“My relationship with Mom drastically changed from discipline to punishment that grew out of control.” 

Dave Pelzer speaks to the book’s motif of control, illustrating his acute awareness that his mother masked her methods of abuse under the guise of parenting. He shows that Catherine’s abusive behavior increased in tandem with her obsessive need for control.

“About this time, Mom’s behavior began to change radically. At times while Father was away at work, she would spend the entire day lying on the couch, dress only in her bathrobe, watching television.” 

Dave describes his mother’s transition from a loving, attentive caretaker to a depressive, angry abuser. He notes the physical indicators, such as a change in his mother’s appearance, that signaled her shift to becoming an abusive parent.

“After a while, I could determine what kind of day I was going to have by the way she dressed. I would breathe a sigh of relief whenever I saw Mom come out of her room in a nice dress with her face made up. On these days she always came out with a smile.” 

Dave learns how to calculate his mother’s moods, becoming a student of her abuse to abate it. This cleverness helps ensure Dave’s survival and illustrates one of the book’s key themes of the resiliency of the human spirit.

“I loved it when Dad was home. It meant no beatings, mirror treatments or long searches for her missing things. Father became my protector.” 

In a callous household in which Dave faces his mother’s abuse and his brothers’ indifference, his father Stephen is his only ally. Stephen attempts to persuade Catherine to ease her punishments, with mixed results.

“They often drank from mid-afternoon, until my brothers and I climbed into bed.” 

Dave hints at his parents’ alcoholism, which was an early cause of their family dysfunction. However, in describing his wonderment at the way his parents danced around the living room after Happy Hour (which started at 3:00 p.m. in their household), he also reveals his naive childhood optimism that his parents seem happy.

“I knew if I wanted to live, I would have to think ahead. I could no longer cry like a helpless baby. In order to survive, I could never give into her.” 

Dave establishes his survival tactics. He realizes that making it out of this household alive means he cannot allow his mother to break him psychologically, which hints at the book’s resiliency theme. So, Dave learns to stall his mother’s abuse. Though Catherine beats his body, Dave resolves never to let Catherine break his will. He learns how to take some of his power back, however small the amount.

“By this time, for all practical purposes, I was no longer a member of the family. I existed, but there was little or no recognition. Mother had even stopped using my name; referring to me only as The Boy.” 

Pelzer exposes the underbelly of child abuse when describing his isolation at home. To the outside world, the Pelzers are happy, but for Dave, home is a torture chamber. His mother continues to ostracize him by taking away any sense of personal identity, even his name. This indicates yet another tactic of control to debase Dave and separate him not only from his family but his humanity.

“Mother smiled as a she had won a million-dollar sweepstakes. She told me how she dressed up to see the principal, with her infant son Russell in her arms. 

In this instance Catherine has won because her tactics of control were effective. Pelzer indicates here that Catherine’s prime motivation throughout the book is power. She relishes exerting strength over others in both direct and indirect ways. Through this characterization of Catherine’s duplicity, Pelzer depicts his mother as highly skilled in the art of manipulation. Catherine instrumentalizes her position as the mother of an infant to win the sympathies of the principal, who suspects Catherine of child abuse.

“At that moment I hated Mother to no end, but I hated Father even more. The man who would help me in the past, just stood like a statue while his son ate something even a dog wouldn’t touch. 

Dave recalls when his mother forces him to throw up and then eat his own vomit while his father Stephen watches. Though his mother is the main perpetrator of abuse, Dave expresses anger at his father for not intervening, for being complicit. Throughout the book Stephen is characterized by the fear and cowardice illustrated in this anecdote.

“‘If you don’t finish on time, I’m going to kill you!’” 

Catherine’s warning to Dave about finishing the dishes on time foreshadows the stabbing incident to come. Dave notes a different air about his mother before the actual threat of her carving knife arrives. He has learned to intuit her moods and behaviors. However, in Pelzer’s telling of the story, the knife stabbing is portrayed as an accident that possibly points to Catherine’s subconscious desire to kill her son.

“I knew father hated living at home, and I felt that it was all my fault.” 

Because Catherine and Stephen fight about Dave, young Dave believes that he is the cause of his parents’ marital problems. He internalizes the dysfunction of an alcoholic and abusive household, creating an internal narrative that if he behaves better and does all his chores, then he can somehow fix his family.

“Deep in my heart I had known Mother was being nice to me for some reason other than wanting to love me.” 

Catherine uncharacteristically apologizes to Dave after a substitute teacher reports Dave’s abuse. Catherine tells Dave that she wants to make up for lost time and invites him back into the family. For a short period Dave is allowed to eat with the family again, to wear proper clothes and sleep in a bed. However, when Dave does not answer a social worker’s questions to Catherine’s liking, the abuse resumes.

“By the time I had decided that there was no God, I had totally disconnected myself from all physical pain. Whenever Mother struck me, it was as if she were taking her aggressions out on a ragdoll.” 

Pelzer illustrates how Catherine’s attempts to dehumanize him briefly work. This self-hatred that Catherine instills in him affects his faith in humanity and his faith in God. However, due to his methods of slowly but surely surviving his mother’s abuse and reclaiming his power, Dave overcomes this threat to his sense of self. In the end he reaches a safe and stable living situation, which speaks to the book’s focus on the strength of the human spirit.

“At the core of my soul, I hated myself more than anybody or anything. I came to believe that everything that happened to me or around me was my own fault because I let it go on for so long.” 

Pelzer illustrates how children often internalize child abuse, touching on the hidden underbelly of child abuse. The scars of abuse often exist within the body as well as outside it. Though Dave’s condition is created entirely by outside forces, he is convinced that he can control them. This conditioning began with his mother telling him that he was a bad boy as a child, justifying her abuse with Dave’s supposed need for discipline.

“You are a nobody! An It! You are nonexistent! You are a bastard child! I hate you and I wish you were dead! Dead! Do you hear me? Dead!”

The book takes its title from this moment of extreme verbal abuse from Catherine. After Dave proudly relays a school accomplishment to her, Catherine immediately shuts him down with this statement, denying his accomplishment while also denying his humanity. This moment marks a turning point in the book, one in which Dave understands that his mother harbors a deep hatred for him beyond her alcoholism. Defeated by his mother’s lack of love for him, Dave briefly gives in to despair, relinquishing his faith in other people and in God. However, when his school administrators report Catherine’s abuse and put Dave into the custody of Child Protective Services, Dave’s faith in humanity is restored.