Out of Many, One Child's Story of Abuse

While a student at Capella University I wrote the following paper in partial fulfillment of the requirements of a class on the prevention and causes of child abuse.

E Pluribus Unum:

Out of Many, One Child's Story of Abuse

Abstract

This paper attempts to present an analytical look at child maltreatment as presented by one of its victims, Dave Pelzer in his book, A Child Called "It": One Child's Courage to Survive. The purpose of using the memories of this one victim of child maltreatment as presented in his book is to consider the child's perspective more directly than is usually possible in explorations of child maltreatment by various professionals and members of other discourse communities whose biases and ideologies naturally affect their perceptions. Third party observations and attempts to determine a child's perspective of abuse and neglect from his or her behaviors may fail to account for individual actions and interactions within the abusive environment that affect what occurs there as well as conclusions drawn from the experiences, and subsequent decisions about how to apply what is learned and what information to share about the experience.

Table of Contents

Abstract 2
Table of Contents 3
ntroduction 4
Child Maltreatment:
More than sticks, stones, and broken bones. 4
Dave Pelzer's Story: Peace or war on the home front? 7
Today is not yesterday:
Prevention, Intervention and Amelioration 20
Conclusion 22
References 23
..................................................................................................

E Pluribus Unum:
Out of Many, One Child's Story of Abuse

The Talmud and the African tribe, the Masai tribe,
Both teach a wisdom for our wounded world.
They both taught:
Sticks alone can be broken by a child,
But sticks in a bundle are unbreakable.
Rabbi Marc Gellman~
A Prayer for America
Yankee Stadium
September 23, 2001
(Bundle of Thirteen Arrows: The Power of War, 2004)

Out of many, one abused child's story of betrayal serves as a symbol of child maltreatment throughout the United States. Dave Pelzer's story, from his book A Child Called "It": One Child's Courage to Survive, (Pelzer, 1995), also serves as a beacon to guide a society of too many such children and those who join them to strive toward a freedom that becomes possible when out of many, one unified voice cries no to child maltreatment.

Child Maltreatment:
More than Sticks, Stones, and Broken Bones

The world is a dangerous place
Not because of those who do evil
But because of those who look on and do nothing.
Albert Einstein

Child abuse is not a modern phenomenon, some bizarre reaction resorted to by an overstressed society with fewer familial and community support systems to assist in child rearing. Throughout recorded history child abuse has left its indelible mark as clearly as a wooden spoon used to discipline a child leaves its mark.(Demause) Children were considered property to be used, abused or discarded without interference. (Crosson-Tower, 2002) Infanticide, corporal punishment, child labor, sexual exploitation including incest, and child abuse as amusement are not unique to the societies of this twenty-first century.
According to Crosson-Tower, (Crosson-Tower, 2002) today we do more to protect children than ever before. As evidence she points to higher levels of awareness by professionals and public alike, improved communication among those who work in the fields related to child maltreatment, ever-increasing research, and media attention. (Crosson-Tower, 2002).

Never-the-less, child maltreatment is a major problem of epidemic proportions (Alliance: Factsheets: Child Abuse, 1997; U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2003), affecting every socio-economic level of society, (Berdik, 2003), every organization, (Sechrist, 2000b) every culture. (Chalk, Gibbons, & Scarupa, 2002; Tsukahara, 2004; Vasquez). Records attest to in excess of three million children whom are abused and neglected each year in the United States. (Crosson-Tower) That number only hints at the possible number of maltreated children not reported. Some have suggested that reported cases represent only the tip of an iceberg.

Currently, in the United States, all 50 states have faults and failings in their child welfare programs. (Pear, 2004). Some consider that a government failure to invest enough in child welfare. (Child Welfare Spending: A Moral Failure to Invest, 2004)Twenty-two states still allow corporal punishment in schools. And the United States is one of only two countries that didn't sign a UN convention that obligated them to protect children's rights (Miller, 2000). The direct and indirect costs to society of a continuing failure to correct this situation in the United States is staggering. Some estimates exceed a conservative estimate of $94 billion per year. (Fromm, 2001). The potential return on investment to change is correspondingly high. (Fromm, 2001). Dave Pelzer estimates the costs to society of rescuing him from an abusive home environment at $100,000. In exchange, he says, society now gets the yield of a functional, taxpaying adult. And he points out, there are more than ten million others out there just like him. (Mikalonis, 1996).

Research confirms that abused children can grow into adults with serious mental health problems, lifelong mental health and emotional problems. However, recovery is possible, if the trauma is identified and treated early. (Dante Cicchetti, 2004; Sechrist, 2000a; What can happen to abused children when they grow up--if no one notices, listens or helps? Some statistics from the research, 2001).

Records, reports, vivid accounts of horrific mutilations and deaths of children by their primary caretakers, statistics involving numbers too large for the average mind to grasp, and voluminous amounts of research have not done a great deal to change child maltreatment in the United States, or elsewhere for that matter. Reports of child abuse and neglect continue to climb. Some blame the faltering economy, rising unemployment, and its greater burden on families, who are falling apart more. (Anderson, 2003).

The costs, the causes, the blames and responsibilities related to child maltreatment matter little if anything to those millions of children who cry out in pain in this moment, who struggle to survive day after day, or to the five who will breathe their last breath today because of child maltreatment. Ask those who live to tell their story as Dave Pelzer did what matters most to the maltreated child.

Dave's Story: War or Peace on the Home Front?

An Eagle was soaring through the air.
Suddenly it heard the whizz of an Arrow,
And felt the dart pierce its breast.
Slowly it fluttered down to earth.
Its lifeblood pouring out.
Looking at the Arrow
With which it had been shot
The Eagle realized that the deadly shaft
Had been feathered with one of its own plumes.
Moral: "We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction.
~Aesop~
(Bundle of Thirteen Arrows: The Power of War, 2004)

Dave Pelzer's book, A Child Called "It": One Child's Courage to Survive, (1995) is the first of a biographical trilogy. The book details his life from ages four to twelve as an abused and neglected child within his birth family. According to words applied to himself throughout the book Dave as a child, in addition to being mal-treated, was also imaginative, creative, noisy, wild, self-destructive, rebellious, disobedient, and inclined to lie, sneak, steal and in other ways behave in a manner that lead to him being identified as a problem child by many. (D. Pelzer, 1995).

Dave's position is that these behaviors were survival mechanisms used to defeat a mother he believed intent upon his destruction. His mother is dead. We cannot ask her position.

This is Dave's story, so other perspectives are not readily apparent within the book. However, the astute reader will keep in mind that memory development in children often contains distortions, conscious and otherwise, (Alessi & Ballard, 2001), so will view the facts presented from Dave's memories accordingly. That is mentioned in no way to suggest or imply that Dave was not an abused child, as others have claimed. (Plotz, 2000). Enough recorded evidence exists, in addition to Pelzer's accounts and after affects to confirm that he was severely maltreated as a child.

Therefore, Pelzer's story serves as an important vehicle in which to explore child maltreatment from the perspective of one of its victims rather than through the perspective of detached, objective and sometimes disinterested third party observers. Although one child's experiences and perceptions of those experiences do not represent those of all maltreated children, for purposes of comparison to existing theories, they may well serve as a reflection of many.

The Pelzer family consisted of two adults and four, later five, children. They lived together in a two-bedroom house. Sometimes the boy's bedroom is directly off the garage/basement where Dave sleeps much of the time on an old army-cot, but other times it is "upstairs" (D. Pelzer, 1955; pp. 96,120). Regardless of the details, by most standards these are crowded accommodations that may have contributed to the family dynamics.

Another factor contributing to the family dynamics is the "code" of the Pelzer family. According to Pelzer, it is "if we don't acknowledge a problem, it simply does not exist" (D. Pelzer, 1955; p.91). Additionally, "parents and children influence each other in a reciprocal manner," creating in the process negative "feedback loops" that increase child behavior problems. (Maccoby and Martin, 1983; in Nicholson, et al. 2002; p. 362). Dave's story provides a graphic illustration of that loop in action. Over time, as his behaviors worsened, the abuse and neglect inflicted on him escalated.

Pelzer insists that the first four years of his life were idyllic. His "perfect" parents were devoted to each other and the well being of their three (at that time) children. Some details suggest a different possibility.
David Pelzer's parents drank together. Their drinking had elements of romance and ritualism. When Dave's father wasn't available to join her, his mother drank alone. Dave saw their drinking as a means of communicating their feelings toward one another. When the parents weren't drinking together they communicated through heated arguments. (D. Pelzer, 1955).

Dave's Father, Stephen Joseph, is described as supporting his family as a San Francisco fireman. Although Dave frequently refers to his father as his hero, he is presented throughout the book as ineffectual. Although Dave recounts attempts by the father to stand up to the mother, it is the father who enforces her order for Dave to eat the vomited hotdogs and tater tots retrieved from the toilette, when he could have flushed them away. He stands by "lifeless" as she forces Dave to drink a spoonful of ammonia a second time, appears "dispassionate" as Dave evacuates in a bucket,(D. Pelzer, 1995) pp. 66,77-8).
His only response is to ask why, after Dave tells him that Catherine stabbed him. Then Steve tells Dave to go in and do the dishes.

Throughout the book, Steve's primary goal is to not do anything to make Catherine upset, and to keep Dave from doing so because he can't "go through that." Dave's perspective of his father is that Catherine "controlled him like she controlled everything that happened in her house." (D. Pelzer, 1995) pp. 89-90).
Sometimes Dave feels "more angry at his father than his mother. While at other times he still perceives the father as his hero and the one person who keeps him safer in an unsafe environment. Perhaps the best the father could do was offer Dave the advice "to try to make her happy and stay out of her way," which apparently was his own solution to any difficult situation he encountered. His frequent promises to rescue Dave were probably offered as his way to make Dave happy more than as any serious intent to ever take action in that direction. (D. Pelzer, 1995; pp. 91, 102, 127).

In a 1996 interview,(Mikalonis, 1996) Dave explained that his mother was reared in a religious Mormon community in Utah, where because her parents were divorced they were treated as outcasts. There she began drinking at the age of thirteen, hiding in the outhouse to drink bootleg whiskey during the Prohibition. (Mikalonis, 1996).

As Catherine would later repeat with her son, Dave, she experienced child maltreatment such as food deprivation, forced confinement and derogatory, degrading comments about her self.(Mikalonis, 1996). Apparently Catherine knew what hell was like before accusing Dave of making her life a "living hell," when she used that as justification for in turn showing him "what hell is like!"(Pelzer, 1995; p.41). Certainly the early family and cultural values she experienced as a child can be expected to have influenced those she continued in her later family relationships. (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002).

Dave's Mother had dreams of being a nurse before meeting Stephen, (D. Pelzer, 1995; p. 88). Her tearful comment about having a "real family," and her bizarre habit of having kids search for unidentified "lost" things that are never found may have as much to do with her own childhood as with anything going on in the episodes of which Dave speaks.(D. Pelzer, 1995).

Dave's story presents examples of an irrational logic to Catherine's choice of bizarre discipline and punishment. The abuses aren't as random as Dave suspects. Neither are they as likely to be little more than random, meaningless assaults on an innocent child as they are out-of-control attempts to exercise control by an out-of-control disabled mind. When she says, "you're a quick little shit, aren't you?….. Well… we'll just see how fast you really are," in response to Dave running to school fast in order to have time to beg food from neighbors, she requires him to do everything faster or do without food. (D. Pelzer, 1995) p.71) She forces him to swallow a spoonful of ammonia (D. Pelzer, 1995) p.74-6)while telling him only speed will save him. Again, she says it is to teach him not to steal food. Within her disabled mind there is an apparent connection between his behaviors and her choices of discipline.

Dave was the second or third of five children, depending on which account is accurate. Dave, Stan, Ronald, Russel, Baby Kevin and the father all experienced yelling and screaming from the mother. A forthcoming book by Dave's brother suggests they all experienced degrees of abuse and neglect, as well, although until Dave left home, he apparently received the most. Whereas in some cases, parental abuse leads to closer sibling relationships, in Dave's case the opposite appears more often true.

For example, Russel, called "mother's little Nazi" by Dave, calls him "the Boy, " makes up stories to get Dave punished, (Pelzer, 1995; pp. 85-6). The boys refuse to acknowledge Dave's presence in the house, "took turns" hitting Dave, and "throwing their weight around, stomped on him as he lay on the floor of the back seat of the car. When seeing Dave in victimized situations, the brothers simply glare at him, shake their heads and turn away, or bring their friends in to see him as when he is confined in the bathtub of cold water. (Pelzer, 1955; pp. 114, 118, 142).

According to the personal account provided in the first book of his Biographical trilogy, (Pelzer, 1995), Dave Pelzer experienced various types of abuse as a child between the ages of four and twelve. Within his home, Dave's mother, father and siblings committed various forms of familial abuses. In his community, Dave's peers abused him at school. Other forms of societal abuse and neglect were evident by others such as extended family members, neighbors, and school personnel who failed to identify the maltreatment, seek assistance or take any action to protect him from harm. In spite of nurses records, school complaint records, reported community experiences that indicate prior knowledge of his insecure and unsafe life,(D. Pelzer, 1995). Dave was twelve years old when one substitute teacher finally triggered on his behalf. (D. Pelzer, 1995)

Dave's mother, Catherine Roerva, committed the most obvious forms of physical maltreatment against him. According to Dave, over time she resorted to various forms of physical abuse and neglect. He specifies that she hit, punched, smacked him in the face, pushed his head against the countertop, smashed his face into a mirror, dragged him, picked him up by the ears, beat him "black and blue" held his arm over the open flame of a gas stove until it burned, kept him submerged for hours in a bathtub of cold water, forced him to ingest soap, ammonia, Clorox, and feces, closed him in the bathroom with a Clorox and ammonia mixture, smeared excrement on his face, whipped him "with the dog's chain" and a broom handle, choked him, (D. Pelzer, 1995) pp. 3, 4, 30, 34, 35, 37, 40, 41, 52, 55, 107, 109, 113, 116, 142).

She also failed to get timely treatment for the "accidental" injuries when she dislocated his arm and stabbed him in the stomach. She denied Dave the physical nurturing that would lead to good health and normal physiological development, deprived him of sleep, food, protection against physical abuse by herself and others.

The mother emotionally abused Dave by calling him sickening, an incompetent loser, a bad boy, wished him dead, and referred to him as "the Boy" and later simply as "it," rather than by his name, thereby negating his existence as a human being or member of the family (D. Pelzer, 1995) pp.32, 50). Dave received fewer Christmas presents than the other children, was kept in forced isolation from the rest of the family, and excluded from most family activities, including meals. His mother had him call himself a bad boy, and repeat "I hate myself, I hate myself" (D. Pelzer, 1995) p. 136). She also denied him the nurturing and acceptance necessary for healthy development.

By failing to defend or protect Dave, simultaneously sharing a victim role with him, and offering empty promises of an eventual escape, the father also emotionally abused him and contributed to Dave's sense of having no worth. In turn, his brothers followed the modeling they were exposed to and treated Dave abusively.

Although, eventually the mother moves into the boys' bedroom and has Dave move into the master bedroom where he sleeps in a bed with his father there are no indications that there was a sexual element to the arrangement. No mention is made of whether the mother sleeps with any of the boys or alone in a bed in their room, either. If there are any overt sexual abuse problems in this family, they are not addressed or insinuated in this book.

Psychological maltreatment was a constant part of Davis' childhood. Catherine resorted to psychological maltreatment when she used food, which should have been nurturing as a weapon to control him. She repeatedly resorted to requiring him to call himself a bad boy, ordered him to climb up and lie on the flames of the gas stove so she could watch him burn, waved a knife at him while threatening to kill him (D. Pelzer; pp. 85)

Catherine continuously neglects Dave's basic needs for survival. Dave repeatedly refers to receiving no food, or inadequate leftovers from other family member's meals over extended periods of time. He claims she even starved him "up to about ten consecutive days (D. Pelzer, 1995) pp. 3,4,104). And yet it deserves mention that while bemoaning the fact that he won't have time to steal food before school, Dave also complains about having the same bag lunch of two peanut sandwiches and a few carrot sticks for three years. Within lines of one another he then tells of not being able to steal food before school, stuffing his sandwiches down his throat during lunch, and his father sneaking scraps of food to him. (D. Pelzer, 1995; p. 58).

Dave claims he had to wear the same pants, shoes with holes in the toes, and Swiss-cheese-holey shirt for two years. That was a way, he explains, for his mother to humiliate him. But again, as with the food insufficiency discrepancies, he later explains how after school he changes into his "Work clothes" before doing his chores. (D. Pelzer, 1995; p.70). Understandably, Dave's perceptions of Catherine's behaviors are all related to his belief that there was a war between them and that war, along with Catherine's determination to win it, dictated her choices of action. However, the possibility exists that along with other unidentified but acknowledged destructive behaviors, Dave may have been destructive of his clothes which would lead to an irrational-logic decision for Catherine to not allow him to wear new clothes which were available by his accounts. Dave and his mother each seem unable or unwilling to see the other except through the fog of their war.

For David, food is not simply sustenance for the body. As he explains, in the early years of his life, his mother was a "gifted cook" who delighted in treating her family to special and fantastic meals. Then food was "wolfed" down, and barely noticed. Later he steals food, dreams of food, and uses food as descriptors, metaphors and analogies throughout his story. (D. Pelzer, 1995; pp. 48).

For Dave Pelzer getting food is less about satisfying a physiological hunger than it is about meeting an emotional/psychological hunger to be the one in control. Food is power. For Catherine and Dave food is the ultimate weapon in a war without end for either of them. At seven, Dave begins stealing food from school, in response, he says, to his unsatisfied hunger, but the food he steals is Twinkies and other desserts, causing classmates to "hate him" and a principal's report to his mother. He steals trays of frozen cafeteria lunches, begs food from neighbors, steals from a store. (D. Pelzer, 1995; pp. 48, 49, 64, 68).

Other discrepancies in the book include the claim that his mother is obsessed with cleanliness and yet they have all those pets, the kitty litter is kept under the kitchen table, and during the dirty diaper scene, she puts the diaper on the kitchen counter (D. Pelzer, 1995; pp. 56, 68).

During the summer when Dave was around eight years old, he mentions that he got along better with his mother, but he doesn't provide any clues as to why. That statement immediately precedes the dirty diaper episode, which seems to indicate the truce, whatever its reason, didn't last long between them. (D. Pelzer, 1995).

Societal abuses, too, abound for Dave. While he was experiencing maltreatment at home, neighbors, relatives, den mother, school personnel, police knew "the conditions" under which Dave lived and did nothing to effect change or attempt to protect him. Few bothered to report what they knew or suspected. Even fewer took action of any kind. Such failures might be considered in the context of a time when child maltreatment was not much of an issue, but even today reporting is encouraged but seldom the action of choice. (Gannon, 2004). Peers "at times took over where Mother left off." Clifford beat him. Angie tormented him. John encouraged him to jump into the bay and drown himself.

Within his world of abuse and neglect, Dave developed a variety of coping behaviors. Dave exhibits hyper vigilance. His ears work as "radar-antennae" to keep track of where mother is and what she is doing. (D. Pelzer, 1995; p. 70) He dissociates, disconnects from physical pain, hides his emotions, and gains strength from his "fear and intense anger." (D.. Pelzer, 1995; pp. 70, 73, 131).

Although Dave uses a natural resiliency, creativity, and spirituality as coping mechanisms, his predominant survival mechanism is his "power." He claims that at 4 he knew he was the problem (D. J. Pelzer, 2000). In that knowing he found his primary defense against the maltreatment, and developed his strength and determination to survive.

For Dave the maltreatment represented a game of war between him and his mother. He repeatedly shares his belief that winning against her was the goal. He says, "the more Mother slugged me, the more I began to realize I won!" Later, he adds, "For the first time I had won." He explains that he "would use any tactic" he could think of "to defeat Mother." He believed he "could never give in to her!" Even while being slapped around, with feces smeared on his face by his mother, he still thinks he "might win," and attributes her behaviors to getting to him before he "could think of a way to defeat her…" (D. Pelzer, 1995; pp. 55, 72).

Dave also finds strength in his perceived successes. He feels proud that he fed himself, when he steals frozen trays of cafeteria food. He recounts other times she didn't win, when he felt "proud for beating mother at her own game," as he felt proud when he cleaned and treated his infected stab wound "willed the wound to heal," and when he refused to cry because he didn’t want to give his mother the satisfaction of his defeat. Eventually he admits, that stealing food makes him feel "like a king on his throne." (D. Pelzer, 1955; pp. 78,79, 98, 132).
When Dave's father leaves he says "I can't take it anymore. The whole thing. Your mother, this house, you. I just can't take it anymore." (D. Pelzer, 1995)P.149). His words tell the story of a family at war within itself, where maltreatment leaves casualties as it spreads, and peace eludes all who play the game. The problem is that child maltreatment cannot be left behind as easily as Dave's father thinks. The results and aftereffects permeate the being of all who are touched by it.

Today is not yesterday: Prevention, Intervention and Amelioration

An old African proverb says that today is not yesterday. Unfortunately, where child maltreatment is concerned that is less than true. Too much remains the same. Real change requires that the subject of child abuse cannot only be looked at in the abstract as in many research projects, pilot projects, added-as-after-thoughts in existing programs, (Brogan, 2003), ignored or disregarded policies (Billman, 2002), deliberately manipulated-for-profit and political power organizational decision, (Gootman, 2004) or superficially as many burnt-out professionals may unwittingly begin to see it(Azar, 2000).

Change requires that it will take many willing to look at the reality of child abuse in order for the power of one united front to find the strength and courage to demand an end to it. Only then may peace and freedom be available to all. Those who would contribute to a future without child maltreatment must first be committed to financially support an in-depth and multi-year continuing program of child well-being designed to prevent, ameliorate the existing effects of, and reduce the interminable life-long ravages (Kempe, 2002; Teicher, 2002) related to child maltreatment. They also must be committed to using all resources available to influence schools, libraries, and child-related programs to take a risk and provide the time and facilities for the implementation and continuation of such programs over time. Additionally, continuing training of any adults working with or in frequent contact with children must be recognized as essential. (Bugental et al., 2002). A commitment by all to prevention, early identification, amelioration of effects, and continual non-maltreatment of children must become a consistent and natural part of children's formal developmental environment whether at home or elsewhere. (Fantuzzo, Stevenson, & Source; 1997, 1997; Gullatt & Stockton, 2000).

Research already indicates some strategies and interventions that are effective with maltreated children. (Dubowitz, 1999). However, unless these become known and practiced by those working with children, little benefit for the children actually occurs from the research. (Jones, 2002; Lowenthal, 2001; Nicholson, Anderson, Fox, & Brenner, 2002). Additionally, those working with children need the ability to work with maltreated children from the child's view of the world rather than to attempt to reach such children from a world-view unknown to them. (Marston, 2001) Activities to modify child and adult perspectives to increase empathy toward abused and abusers, (Wiehe, 1997) increased development of social competencies, and ego resiliency have fully mediated behavior problems in maltreated children. (Shonk & Cicchetti, 2001). Eventually change today will make truth of the idea that where child maltreatment is concerned, today is in fact not yesterday.

Conclusion

After much occasion
To consider the folly
And mischiefs of a state of warfare
And the little or no advantage obtained
Even by those nations who have conducted it with the most success
I have been apt to think that there has never been
Or ever will be any such thing
As a good war
Or a bad peace

(The olive branch: The power of peace, 2004)

Today there may be as many perspectives about child maltreatment as there are those touched by it to one degree or another. Whether posited as individual or group views, all are biased according to educational foci, theories and practices, and further modified by individual ideologies. Professional, (Azar, 2000; Greenwalt, Skylare, & Portes, 1998; Southal, Samueals, & Golden, 2003; Straus, 2000), societal, political, (Brogan, 2003), medical,(D Cicchetti, 2002; Goodman, 2000) educational, (Shumba, 2002; Staudt, 2001; Turner & Johnson, 2003)(Billman, 2002;(Hinson & Fossey, 2000; Hodgkinson & Bagindky, 2000)), developmental (Ormrod, 2004; Pollak, Cicchetti, Hornung, & Reed, 2000), and other discourse communities claim unique-to- them successes and failures in addressing the subject of child maltreatment. Some people, such as Alice Miller disassociate their ideas from firmly entrenched traditional foundations, struggling to be heard by a world that needs to hear what she is saying. Others attempt to revisit those same foundations in search of some misplaced concept to use in their fight.(Blum, 2004) As these wars of words continue, peace for those impacted by child maltreatment remains as illusive as the substance of Dave's father's empty promises to rescue him. Perhaps the time has come for an olive branch among the many who are interested in seeing change to be extended in all directions (Hamovitch, 1996)so that one child like Dave Pelzer can look forward to a tomorrow unlike yesterday or today.

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