An Alcoholic Mother

Catherine Pelzer was a violent women, and she took out her anger on her children. I think that she could have handled being an alcoholic differently then torturing Dave. A mother shouldn't make her child starve, sleep in the garage, drink ammonia, breath in deadly gases and play devil games like gas chamber. Dave had to go through all of this for eight years. I feel like Mrs. Pelzer could have gotten help instead of doing bad things to her children. I can't believe that a mother would beat up her child, give him bruises, and make him lie to his teachers about what had happened to him. No child deserves to be treated that way even if their mother was an alcoholic.

Characters

The characters of A Child Called "It" are different then any other family ever heard of. In the beginning of the book the mother I think that the mother is very kind and compassionate, but then she changes to cruel and abusive alcoholic. I think she shouldn't have taken her depression and anger out on her sons, because a mother is supposed to help and care for her children and not beat or starve them to death. She has four sons, Dave, Robert, Stephen, and Kenneth. The father is a firefighter and his job would keep him away from home at days at a time. To me, he seems nice and caring for all his sons, even though towards the end he fails to help Dave and leaves him to be a slave of his mother along with the rest of the boys. I don't think that Dave deserved any harm from his mother, he didn't do anything wrong.