#david pelzer

Oh, and his father never loved him, nor did he ever care about any of his sons (including Dave himself). Just for that, he can die!

A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer meant a lot to me as a kid. While my abuse was not as extreme, the psychology of the abuser and the abused was so intimately familiar. I saw my Mom in that woman. Im not saying my Mom was that bad, or was exactly the same, Im saying I saw the same psychological state of being emotionally out of control and twisting it into sadism against a child.

It disturbs me revisiting this book that the author is accused of fraud. And the accusations aren't based on solid evidence, not any that I can find.

The article that started these accusations of lying, in 2002 in the NYT, is behind a paywall and Im honestly not going to the effort of going around it, I am sure the kids today know how to go around paywalls but I don't want to read it and get all upset that badly tbqh. It's by a sportswriter, Pat Jordan, who dabbled in true crime who somehow got to say that for the New York Times but the secondhand sources citing it dont show that Jordan actually provided evidence. They also claim Jordan had a hostility towards therapy. Jordan has his own memoir out where he accuses his own father of being a con artist. So it kinda seems like he is someone who would be hypervigilant to thinking someone is grifting.

The reasons people give for not believing him just read like a laundry list of all the reasons people call all abuse victims liars. Some of his relatives say they think he exaggerated, but still say there was abuse, like a 90 year old grandma who lived in another state and some - not all - of his brothers. The other scapegoated brother confirms the abuse in his own book. Well, that's typical. The other kids were both privileged by the abuser and separated from the rituals of abuse and Dave's life in general, young, brainwashed. Lots of times the "golden child(ren)" deny abuse. They're meant to. The abuser has arranged it that way. They're kids, they're warped by an abuser, they are in denial and feeling guilty. The majority of the abuse of the scapegoat will be entirely in private, as Dave's was.

People point out that the memoir of his childhood going only up to age 12 reads.... like a memoir of childhood memories does... as the.. memories of a child. Like, yea some stuff might have seemed "exaggerated" to him. The amount of time something took, for example, would be really common for a child to misremember. He says in the forward it is meant to capture his childhood memories!

Dave also says openly he changed names. The book is - a book. It's carefully written and edited. It's presented to the reader. It's... a book.

To get attention? Yes! You grew up abused and that was hidden and you want the world to see it! You want to save other kids! That is understandable and not a bad thing. Yes, he is bringing attention to child abuse and to his life. And yes, he's making money from it. He wants to make money from telling his story, it's hard, time and energy consuming work and in this society it's really hard to do anything you can't monetize, frankly, we should all know that by now. The man has a child, a child he devotes himself to giving a completely different life from his, one of love and safety and peace, - god forbid he makes any money from writing a book.

As Dave DETAILS in his book not just very openly but clearly to educate us on how abuse works, abused kids have to learn how to deceive and appease to survive the abuser. To tense part of your body before a punch, to cry when that will help or show no emotion if that will help, to steal food, to lie about injuries.

So could Dave's adult work as a motivational speaker, could his story telling, come off as someone with some skill in some manner of audience manipulation? Sure dude. Everyone does that sometimes, every writer and actor does that when performing. That doesn't mean someone just made up their whole life story.

People say he couldnt have survived all that. Unfortunately, and fortunately, people have survived worse. And again, yea sure, maybe the week he remembers eating nothing he did actually eat a bite somewhere. Maybe the time he got stabbed it wasnt as deep as the book makes it sound, it seemed deeper to a kid. Sure, maybe a couple little details are off.

eta: another claim is that he "doesn't have PTSD" and functions well in life. If you read his follow up work, he does struggle with PTSD, and even if he didn't, not everyone who, say, comes back from war has it, it clearly depends. And the idea that survivors will never function and thrive is false and insulting. Look at Oprah, Maya Angelou, Elie Wiesel ffs. People CAN survive! /eta

The other main claim is "how did she get away with it? Her kid coming to school every day with bruises and dirty clothes and no one did anything?" Yea dude. Especially in the 70s. Yes. Children get murdered by abusers to this day after a CPS failure. And that's when it gets reported at all. The teacher in the afterward who was one of Pelzer's saviors said he didn't even have any understanding of child abuse back then. It hasnt even always been illegal to abuse a kid. To this day, hitting and verbally abusing your kids is largely legal. There's a line, there's been progress (BECAUSE of people like Dave) but a lot of abuse is still legal.

People say he didnt provide enough proof to them of this hidden child abuse from when he was under 12 in the 70s. I dont even know what they expect. The only external proof I have of my own abuse are the times someone else witnessed something, most of the physical stuff was only seen by a fellow sibling occasionally, neighbors heard some yelling, that's about it. but it's not like we had phones and filmed it even in the 90s, it's not like my parents signed a form when they lost their temper. Its not like abusers take the kid to the doctor. The couple times someone called cops or DCFS they didnt do their jobs. There isn't just - collected evidence of all this stuff. That's- beyond unreasonable. At most there might have been some documentation of the child custody proceedings, in the 70s I really don't know if that would be available now.

And something that is striking about these allegations is that on EVERY forum alleging them you start to see abuse victims saying "that's very realistic actually. That's what it's like".

You also don't see the actual proof of fraud. Proof the teacher who wrote the afterward doesnt exist, for example, something like that. That is what you see with actual fraud cases. The person was actually not in the USA on 9/11. Stuff like that. That's proof of fraud.

Does it sound like that's a high bar to clear to call him a fraud? I don't think so, I think an abuse victim (or a person with cancer, or whatever thing that very rarely people lie about but most people arent lying about) should be believed or at the very least not persecuted like this unless you have extremely good evidence. I particularly think a journalist shouldn't make those allegations without doing actual journalism.

When 9/11 survivors and journalists started suspecting fraudulent "victim" Tania Head, they DID RESEARCH. They FOUND PROOF. Hard evidence. She was in Barcelona on 9/11. They didn't just start accusing her without proof. Because that would have been awful. And unlike Dave, she was being a jerk to other survivors, she was not showing mutual support, I dont see anyone so much as claiming Dave didnt support other survivors. Survivors seem to appreciate him, in fact.

Is it possible it's fake? I guess. Is it likely? No, it's not. Is there reasonable evidence of fraud? Not to my knowledge. Im obviously incredibly biased here, and yes I will be so crushed if it turned out to be a fraud, but I would want to see that evidence, Id want to know - if it is actually solid, compelling evidence, not just some redditor's misunderstanding of how abuse works.

In over 20 years, no one has gone and found actual proof that Dave lied. It's still just rumors and speculation burned onto his wikipedia and his legacy. A message to him as a survivor and every survivor watching, that we STILL are not to be believed.

“Because of the impact A Child Called “It” and it’s sequels had on me, I thought I might do something related to foster care.”

The Pregnancy Project by Gabby Rodriguez, (2012)

Five Summer Reads for Reluctant Readers

recommended by Scott Wilson, author of Metl: The ANGEL Weapon

I'm a very picky reader. If I'm not one-hundred-percent enjoying a book, I will put it down, move onto something else, and not worry about picking it back up again—no scruples given. In fact, I'd say that on average I probably only finish one out of every five books that I start.

And I don't think I'm alone in my pickiness. Sure, we can toss blame at diminishing attention spans or the collapse of culture, but honestly between YouTube, Netflix, video games, and heck, so many great other books out there, there's just an overwhelming number of choices. Why waste your time with one you're not completely loving?

So if you know someone who might also be a picky reader like me, maybe one of the books on this summer reading list could grab their attention.

One Piece by Eiichiro Oda

There was recently a big commotion on Twitter when a parent tweeted that their son's teacher didn't let students choose what to read for summer reading because "they'd just read graphic novels and fantasy." To that I say… let them read whatever the heck they want!

I've always been a fan of the idea that, rather than forcing boring tomes into kids' heads, we should just let them have fun, read what they want, and help them foster a life-long love of reading. And there's no better place for a reluctant reader to start than with the Japanese manga One Piece.

One Piece is exciting; it's full of pirates, characters with crazy superpowers, and incredible fights against bad guys, but it goes way deeper than that. It asks the reader difficult questions, such as what really is justice, and who gets to decide? Not only that, but the villains are fleshed-out mini masterpieces, the world building is the best I've ever seen, and each character's backstory is heart wrenching. In fact, One Piece has the honor of being the only written story that has made me cry. Set sail for a roller coaster of emotions with this incredible series!

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

What better story for a reluctant reader than one about a reluctant learner? Milo is a boy who regards "the process of seeking knowledge as the greatest waste of time of all," until one day when he is swept away into The Lands Beyond. There, all types of learning come alive: there is Dictionopolis, the kingdom of words; Digitopolis, the kingdom of numbers; the Forest of Sight; the Valley of Sound; and of course, the Island of Conclusions, which you have to jump to, naturally.

My father read this book to me when I was five, when he just happened to be taking a college course on the book itself, which shows the breadth of ages that can appreciate this book. Young children can enjoy the fun adventure of Milo and Tock the time-dog, older kids can chuckle at all the clever wordplay, and teens can appreciate the deeper meaning and metaphors on nearly every page… while also laughing at jokes like:

"How are you going to make it move? It doesn't have a—" "Be very quiet," advised the duke, "for it goes without saying." And, sure enough, as soon as they were all quite still, [the wagon] began to move quickly through the streets.

A Child Called It by David Pelzer

Apparently this is a book that many people read in school, but it completely slipped by me until recently. I sat down to read it, opened it up, and didn't stop until two hours later when I had pummeled through the entire thing—something I hadn't done since I read the first Harry Potter book when I was eleven.

Even though this is an engrossing book, it's intense. The story is based on the author's real life, following him from age five to twelve, when he was horrifically abused by his mother. Just when you think it can't get worse, it does. Again. And again. And again. This is the only book I've ever read that had me physically cringing as I read through it.

The emotional severity of the book also makes for good outside research and discussions as well. Why was the mother abusive toward David and not his brothers? Why did the father do nothing to help? These are important questions that can set in motion a lot of great critical thinking.

Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher

I grew up in a very homogeneous neighborhood. Pretty much everyone was white, and I don't remember any openly gay students in school. So when I read Almost Perfect, it literally opened my eyes to a brand new world.

The story follows Logan, an average high school boy who falls head over heels for the new girl at school, Sage. But when he finds out that Sage was born a boy, suddenly he doesn't know what to do. Conflicting feelings, the judgment of others, and the stormy roads of healing a wounded friendship all come to a boil in this book.

What really sets this story apart for me is the fact that the "surprise" of Sage's reveal is not really a surprise: it's given away on the back cover, and it happens fairly early on. The meat of the story is the tumultuous reconciliation of the two characters, their growth, and learning more about the world. In our society where a need for acceptance and respect is at an all-time high, this book is even more important than ever.

Unwind by Neal Shusterman @nealshustermanreal

This book was my introduction to Neal Shusterman, one of my favorite dystopian authors. In Unwind, children's lives are deemed untouchable from birth to age thirteen, but from thirteen to eighteen, their parents/guardians can have them "unwound," a process that divides up all their body parts for others to use, and technically still keeps them alive.

What I love about this story is how it follows the points of view of three different characters, all facing the prospect of being unwound for different reasons: Connor, whose parents can't handle his misbehavior anymore; Risa, who is a ward of the state and will be unwound for budget reasons; and Lev, who is being unwound as part of a religious ceremony.

In our current society, where reproductive rights are being fought over yet again, seeing a possible outcome from such a battle is harrowing. This is another action-packed book that, while fun to read by itself, will also spark some great discussions.

Don’t forget to read Scott Wilson’s book, Metl: The ANGEL Weapon. Preferably read with a big, red summer moon outside your window!

A Form Of Petty Revenge (3) Real Life Experiences

Your boss gave you an unfair review. Your partner embarrassed told complete strangers that you have to go to the bathroom in a public place, and then asked them to show you where it was, because apparently you’re five years-old. Your children were the spawn of Satan for a day. But you can’t blog about these events, because people close to you read your blog, and people not so close to you. And…