Author's Note: When you are neglected for so many years it isn't easy to regain trust in people again. This essay explains the story "A Child Called It" where a young boy was a victim of one of the worst child abuse cases in all California history. It shows my relations and thoughts for this book. I placed a lot of feeling and thought within this piece, enjoy.
Not being loved: it is known to be some people’s biggest fear in life. Not being able to experience a hug when you really need one or encouraging words when they are needed most. When the people that surround you all have no respect for you at all. What happens when that fear becomes a reality. In the autobiography, “A Child Called “It”” Dave Pelzer explains his life and how even thought he was severely abused as a child, he still kept hope that he would make it out alive. Even if it was a struggle getting to where you are today, the road ahead will all be worth it.
Being tortured for years by the cruel games that his alcoholic mother thought of made me want to stop and cry. Such as being placed on the hot gas stove or being locked in a gas chamber for several hours. He wasn’t fed, well, only the scraps of food on occasion. David couldn’t leave the cold, dark cellar in the basement until ordered. His clothes were torn and he came to school with multiple bruises. To his mom, David was not a child anymore: but an “It”.
Not having the childhood that this boy so rightly deserved was brutal to read. I feel that if I was him, I would have ended it all. I couldn’t go through with the dis-respect and beatings that his mother bestowed upon him. David felt that he couldn’t either but, he never lost hope. He never lost the courage to stay alive because he knew that one day he would escape from his mother: escape from this life that he was living. I can really relate to how David was feeling and that he needed to escape. Being neglected and not treated right is not how you want to look back and say that’s how my childhood was. Even though, going through those terrible life experiences like David did, you have it realize makes you stronger. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger for the road ahead.
No human on this earth, no matter what they have done, deserve to be treated the way David was. His mother placed his whole arm on a stove and just let it burn. She tormented him for her own sick satisfaction. All of this hate and rejection can take a toll on a child’s life when they grow up, if they even make it to be an adult. It can brutally hard a child’s self esteem and respect for ones self. In some parts of the book, David acknowledged how much he hated himself at the time. After living through that, wouldn’t it be hard to trust people again? His mother made sure all of the people in his world hated him. It must have been really hard trying to regain that trust with people again but, David did. His whole life he powered through and that’s what makes him an amazing role model today.
Even though the road was hard to get to where he is today, he knew it would all be worth it. David is the ideal role model for any young adult because he took the terrible life that he was given and turned it around to being surrounded by people that love him. He has been given no hope or comfort for all this time but, he prayed and hoped that he would make it out. David made it out as a human, not an "It".
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