Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Social effects of domestic violence on children
Abstract the impact of alcoholism
How alcohol affects health essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Social effects of domestic violence on children
"A Child Called It."
Dave Pelzer is the survivor of the third worst case of child abuse in California's history. Dave grew up with his two brothers and two parents. Catherine, Dave's mother, loved to cook exotic meals for her family and decorate their home in creative and imaginative ways each holiday season. She was full of energy, often taking her kids on tours of downtown San Francisco while her husband was at work as a fire fighter, exposing them to Golden Gate Park and Chinatown. Once, while on a family camping trip, young Dave was watching the sunset when he felt his mother embrace him from behind and watch the sunset with him over his shoulder. "I never felt as safe and warm as at that moment in time," he recalls.
But then, his mother changed. Slowly at first, but drastically. Her behavior became unusual and her drinking increased heavily. She became easily frustrated, and it seems that her biggest source of frustration was Dave, the loudest and wildest of her children. And thus, Dave's nightmare began. Pelzer is never clear on what caused this harsh change in behavior; most likely, he doesn't know and never will. Dave struggles to stay alive in a home where he treated basically like an animal and a slave. Catherine
found any excuse to punish Dave, while favoring her other children and her punishments grew more dangerously the older he got. Besides being horribly beaten, Dave was forced to eat his own vomit, swallow soap, ammonia, and Clorox. This was just the beginning of his mother's "games". Initially, she would slap him, smash his face into the mirror and make him repeat "I'm a bad boy!" or make him to search for hours for something she had "lost." But with time, her cruelty grew to include not giving ...
... middle of paper ...
...nding what is "normal" and what is not because of the unpredictable environment they were raised in. Often times alcoholic have a tendency to abuse their children and their spouse. Many times, alcoholics come from an abusive home and they have a history of alcoholism in the family already. In conclusion, alcohol affects every part of your life. It has irreversible affects on the body, including the liver and the brain. Alcohol also has detrimental affects on the mind, which leads to feeling inferior and unstoppable. Alcohol and alcoholism also affects family as well. There are many treatment programs and support groups that can help. However, most of the time the alcoholics refuse to admit they have a problem with their drinking, so it goes untreated. It is best to seek help, as living with an alcoholic parent is not only traumatizing, but taxing on the body and mind.
In childhood Pelzer could have developed severe anxiety, always fearing what his mother may do or say next and not knowing if he will survive it or not. He could have developed depression or suicidal thoughts. Being constantly treating like a slave and being abused may lead one to believe to think those things or just the lack of love may have led to depression. With that, never knowing when his mother may kill him, Dave could have decided just to do it himself, to not give his mother the pleasure and to finally escape the world where the only thing he knows is hate and abuse. As he grew up, even being away from the situation, Dave could have developed self-esteem issues and poor body health. Again relating to the negative image his mother forced upon him, Dave could have looked at himself as a “bad boy” or garbage as he was commonly called and that could have destroyed his confidence, and because his body was treated so poorly, he himself may not take the best care of it. Many child abuse victims end up having attachment issues as the grow up as well. The relationship between parents and child is supposed to teach the child what relationships should be like, that should be the foundation for love and trust in the future. However, when that bond is destroyed for whatever reason, in this case the abuse from the mother and
The resolution in the story becomes apparent once Dave realizes that he can communicate with his daughter if he just lets her be
and Dave did not know how to deal with it. He did not know whether she was
Then, his mother began spending her days watching TV and drinking beer. Easily irritated, she yelled at Dave for the slightest reason, or sometimes for no reason at all. Soon, instead of making him go down to the basement, Mrs. Pelzer smashed Dave's face against the mirror, then made him repeat, over and over, "I'm a bad boy! I'm a bad boy!" He was forced to stand for hours staring into that mirror. Dave's father soon joined The Mother, as David called her, in her drinking.
and he didn’t even have anything to cover him. Dad would occasionally sneak him scraps of food, but if he didn’t he would have to starve. 5- Bathroom This is where mother played many games of torture with Dave. She played 'Gas Chamber' which is a dangerous game where Dave has to stay in the bathroom with many different chemicals causing him to choke. She also made him swallow ammonia and made him sit in a bathtub of freezing cold water for hours.
6. I think that his mother just randomly decided to abuse David. Since she was an alcoholic she did not always realize what she was doing to him. She also probably didn’t want to do all the things around the house and thought it was too much to do so she had David do all the chores. She punished him by doing dreadful things.
David changes his mind about Uncle Frank through the traumatic experiences regarding the discovery of Frank's secret actions. Uncle Frank used to be David's idol and David adored him. But that all changed when David's housekeeper and baby sitter, Marie Little Soldier, becomes violently ill and is in need of a doctor. Wes Hayden, David's father, calls his brother Frank, who is the town doctor, to come and see her. Strangely enough, Marie Little Soldier refuses to be alone in the room with Frank. Later on, Marie tells David's mother horrible things that Frank has been doing to Native American women. David's mother, Gail, tells Wes as David overhears. She says, ' 'Wesley, your brother has been raping these women. These girls. These Indian girls…' [David states] I was beginning already to think of Uncle Frank as a criminal…Charming, affable Uncle Frank was gone for good'; (47, 49).
A Child Called It depicts David Pelzer’s life and his incredible will of survival from an “It” to a man. David was emotionally and physically abused up until the age of 12, by his mother (Catherine) who was not only an alcoholic but a master of defamation. The cruelty David endured at the hands of his mother led him to believe he was nothing more than a worthless misfortune; he began to despise himself even more and started to believe that he was the cause of the abuse he suffered.
Pelzer informs the reader that his family was like that of “the ‘Brady Bunch’ of the 1960’s” and that “[their] every whim was fulfilled with love and care’ (Pelzer, 15). They would often go on vacation where his mother was known as the “mastermind” due to her excessive planning of fun activities upon their travels (Pelzer,19). As if “Everyday seemed sprinkled with magic,” things started to take a turn for the worse David himself states, “ My relationship with my mom drastically changed from discipline that developed into a kind of lifestyle that grew out of control. It became so bad at times. I had no strength to crawl away-even if it meant saving my life” (Pelzer, 19-20). David had the misfortune of having to endure emotional abuse from his mother. Emotional abuse can be defined as “rejection, terrorization, isolation, exploitation, degradation, ridicule, or failure to provide emotional support, love and affection” (Papalia & Feldman p. 161). An Example of such abuse that David had experienced, was when his mother degraded him by referring to him as an “it”. Proclaiming his own mother as, “the Bitch,” David’s experiences emotional maltreatment as his mother screams, “you’re a nobody! An It! You are non-existent! You are a bastard child! I hate you! And I wish you were dead! Dead! Did you hear me? Dead!”(Pelzer, 140). This quote is an example of emotional maltreatment
When Dave accidentally kills the mule, it shows the responsibility of true manhood that Dave is clearly not ready to take on. The Alexander 2 ending, where he decides to leave his house when everyone is asleep. Dave is also mad how everyone is treating him, and how all he ever gets to do is work all the time and has never been given anything in his life. Dave is even mad at his family, especially his mother, for ratting him out. He did not want to sell the gun and give the money to Mr. Hawkins, as his father instructed him to do.
The traumatic effect of the physical, mental, and emotional abuse marked Pelzer’s life. Through a psychological point of view, it is visible that there are many ways the abuse affected David. David was mistreated in ways that made him wonder why. I was also left feeling perplexed and sometimes feeling frustrated, I wanted to know why David 's mother singled him out for her abuse. Then, I realized that this was the same frustration David has lived with most of his
Dave keeps secrets from his own wife we first see this when Dave tries to talk about what happened to him all those years ago. He says the name of the people that took him for the first time ever Dave says he has never told anyone their names before. Dave also says he had to pretend to be someone else and that’s why part of him died.
As the result of being raised in a home where one or both parents were addicted, children of alcoholics generally have certain common characteristics that continue to affect them as adults. Members of a dysfunctional family tend to build up defenses to deal with the problems of the addicted family member. Common problems include lack of communication, mistrust, and low self-esteem. Adult children of alcoholics often become isolated, are afraid of authority figures, have difficulty distinguishing between normal and abnormal behavior, and judge themselves harshly. This often leads to enduring feelings of guilt and problems with intimate relationships. In many cases, adult children of alcoholics develop an over-developed sense of responsibility, and respond poorly to criticism. They may feel different from other people, fear failure but tend to sabotage success, and fall in love with people they can pity and rescue. Fortunately, there are a number of support groups designed to help adult children of alcoholics identify their problems, and start resolving them.
After filing for divorce and agreeing to joint custody of their nine-year-old daughter, David eventually finds love again with another man named Tom. However, when him and Tom bump into his daughter and former wife at a local diner, David introduces Tom as an old work friend. Though David could have easily expected a serious argument with Tom after that encounter, he fears a life without his daughter. Despite the fact that David knew his daughter had no negative feelings towards her best friend who was adopted from China by a same-sex lesb...
"Because time and amount of drinking are uncontrollable, the alcoholics is likely to engage in such behaviors as [1] breaking family commitments, both major and minor; [2] spending more money than planned; [3] drinking while intoxicated and getting arrested; [4] making inappropriate remarks to friends, family, and co-workers; [5] arguing, fighting and other anti-social actions. The alcoholic would probably neither do such things, nor approve of them in others unless he was drinking" (Johnson 203).