A Child Called It

Keeping our Promise of Security to the

Promise of the Promise Land

David Pelzer's novella, A Child Called It, deals with something many people in our country often fail to notice. Almost daily we are bombarded with stories of orphaned children in disaster struck areas, or the starving children in third world countries. However, it isn't very often that we, as Americans, stop to think about the thousands of children in our own country that are going through a personal storm, with the affects of this internal tempest possibly one hundred times worse than those of Katrina or Rita.

The story focuses on a young boy called David, who is a member of a working class (not poverty stricken) family. The second chapter of this story is dedicated to talking about only the good times that young David remembers with his family. He recalls times out at the lake with his parents, and his mothers loving and nurturing embrace on the waterside. He remembers the times before alcohol turned his mother into a heartless, and evil woman who held no regard for her commitment to her children.

Later in the story the author reveals more about the living conditions with his mother. He recalls times that mother forced him to eat waste out of his baby brother's diaper. This is later made to look mild when she forces him to regurgitate in order to see if he had been sneaking food any way. Then he is forced to eat his own vomit.

I'll admit, as an "American teenager" I sometimes get to feeling sorry for myself and thinking about how I may not have it as great as other kids, but when I read something like this and realized that my life is actually not as bad as I thought it is, I am thankful. However this also places some guilt on me also. It makes me feel guilty for what I do have. I feel that I should do something to prevent the promises of the