{"id":18828,"date":"2020-11-17T18:53:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-17T22:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=18828"},"modified":"2020-11-29T09:50:20","modified_gmt":"2020-11-29T13:50:20","slug":"dave-pelzers-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/","title":{"rendered":"Dave Pelzer’s Father: The Passive Witness to Abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Who was Dave Pelzer’s father? Did he also abuse David?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dave Pelzer’s father did not initiate the abuse. But he went from being a passive protector to an apathetic observer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more about Dave Pelzer’s father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Passive Protection From Dave Pelzer’s Father<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Dave Pelzer\u2019s father works 24-hour shifts at the firehouse. On the days that Father\u2019s home from work, Mother largely refrains from\u2014or at least limits\u2014her abuse. <\/strong>Consequently, David sees Father as his protector, and he stays by Father\u2019s side whenever Father is home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

David\u2019s parents seem happy. They have a habit of celebrating their own happy hour, drinking and dancing<\/a> around the kitchen together from 3 p.m. until the boys\u2019 bedtime. But these good times don\u2019t last long. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Father is home, Mother gets dressed, does her makeup, and is in a generally good mood. But on days when Father is at work, Mother sometimes wears only her robe and spends the day watching TV on the couch. These are the days when Mother\u2019s Mr. Hyde emerges and David endures the worst abuse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day, as Father is leaving for work, he tells David to be a good boy. In this instant, David feels that Mother must be right, that he really is a bad boy. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shift in Father’s Role<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Withholding food is Mother\u2019s primary punishment for David. She seldom feeds David dinner or breakfast\u2014at most, if he finishes his morning chores in time, he gets his brothers\u2019 cereal leftovers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Father tries to help David, but he doesn\u2019t dare cross Mother to do so. Sometimes Father sneaks food scraps to David or gets Mother drunk in hopes that it will help, but alcohol only makes her crueler. And worse, Father\u2019s efforts cause fights between him and Mother, which Mother blames and takes out on David. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

David comes up with a plan to steal frozen lunches from the school cafeteria. He sneaks into the cafeteria right after a frozen lunch delivery, snags a few trays, and inhales them in the bathroom. He feels full, accomplished, and excited to do it again the next day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when David gets home, Mother has a hunch that he\u2019s found food. She forces him to vomit, and she\u2019s triumphant when the frozen hot dogs appear from his stomach. Mother forces David to collect his vomit from the toilet into a bowl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later that night, Mother shows Father the bowl as evidence of David\u2019s stealing. But worse, Mother forces David to eat the bowl\u2019s contents. Father\u2014having failed to talk Mother out of it\u2014looks on numbly. This is the first time Father witnesses and passively allows such blatant abuse in front of his face, and it devastates David, who has always considered Father to be his protector.<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who was Dave Pelzer’s father? Did he also abuse David? Dave Pelzer’s father did not initiate the abuse. But he went from being a passive protector to an apathetic observer. Read more about Dave Pelzer’s father.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,33],"tags":[157],"class_list":["post-18828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parenting","category-people","tag-a-child-called-it","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nDave Pelzer's Father: The Passive Witness to Abuse - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Was Dave Pelzer's father also abusive? No, but he didn't intervene when Dave's mother was hurting him. Here's what happened in the home.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dave Pelzer's Father: The Passive Witness to Abuse\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Was Dave Pelzer's father also abusive? No, but he didn't intervene when Dave's mother was hurting him. Here's what happened in the home.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-11-17T22:53:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-11-29T13:50:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/a-child-called-it-father-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1707\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rina Shah\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rina Shah\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rina Shah\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d07435826f13a8f422d5d333dceac287\"},\"headline\":\"Dave Pelzer’s Father: The Passive Witness to Abuse\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-11-17T22:53:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-11-29T13:50:20+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/\"},\"wordCount\":491,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/a-child-called-it-father-scaled.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"A Child Called 'It'\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Parenting\",\"People\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/\",\"name\":\"Dave Pelzer's Father: The Passive Witness to Abuse - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/a-child-called-it-father-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-11-17T22:53:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-11-29T13:50:20+00:00\",\"description\":\"Was Dave Pelzer's father also abusive? No, but he didn't intervene when Dave's mother was hurting him. Here's what happened in the home.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/a-child-called-it-father-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/a-child-called-it-father-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1707},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Dave Pelzer’s Father: The Passive Witness to Abuse\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Shortform Books\",\"description\":\"The World's Best Book Summaries\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Shortform Books\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png\",\"width\":500,\"height\":74,\"caption\":\"Shortform Books\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d07435826f13a8f422d5d333dceac287\",\"name\":\"Rina Shah\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/560b3bc3d51625f9becff4fded992607b156f274aa36bc07f8a4285a1d72cdc8?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/560b3bc3d51625f9becff4fded992607b156f274aa36bc07f8a4285a1d72cdc8?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Rina Shah\"},\"description\":\"An avid reader for as long as she can remember, Rina\u2019s love for books began with The Boxcar Children. Her penchant for always having a book nearby has never faded, though her reading tastes have since evolved. Rina reads around 100 books every year, with a fairly even split between fiction and non-fiction. Her favorite genres are memoirs, public health, and locked room mysteries. As an attorney, Rina can\u2019t help analyzing and deconstructing arguments in any book she reads.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/author\/rina\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Dave Pelzer's Father: The Passive Witness to Abuse - Shortform Books","description":"Was Dave Pelzer's father also abusive? No, but he didn't intervene when Dave's mother was hurting him. Here's what happened in the home.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Dave Pelzer's Father: The Passive Witness to Abuse","og_description":"Was Dave Pelzer's father also abusive? No, but he didn't intervene when Dave's mother was hurting him. Here's what happened in the home.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/","og_site_name":"Shortform Books","article_published_time":"2020-11-17T22:53:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-11-29T13:50:20+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2560,"height":1707,"url":"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/a-child-called-it-father-scaled.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Rina Shah","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Rina Shah","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/"},"author":{"name":"Rina Shah","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d07435826f13a8f422d5d333dceac287"},"headline":"Dave Pelzer’s Father: The Passive Witness to Abuse","datePublished":"2020-11-17T22:53:00+00:00","dateModified":"2020-11-29T13:50:20+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/"},"wordCount":491,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/a-child-called-it-father-scaled.jpg","keywords":["A Child Called 'It'"],"articleSection":["Parenting","People"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/","name":"Dave Pelzer's Father: The Passive Witness to Abuse - Shortform Books","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/a-child-called-it-father-scaled.jpg","datePublished":"2020-11-17T22:53:00+00:00","dateModified":"2020-11-29T13:50:20+00:00","description":"Was Dave Pelzer's father also abusive? No, but he didn't intervene when Dave's mother was hurting him. Here's what happened in the home.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/a-child-called-it-father-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/a-child-called-it-father-scaled.jpg","width":2560,"height":1707},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dave-pelzers-father\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Dave Pelzer’s Father: The Passive Witness to Abuse"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/","name":"Shortform Books","description":"The World's Best Book Summaries","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"Shortform Books","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png","width":500,"height":74,"caption":"Shortform Books"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d07435826f13a8f422d5d333dceac287","name":"Rina Shah","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/560b3bc3d51625f9becff4fded992607b156f274aa36bc07f8a4285a1d72cdc8?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/560b3bc3d51625f9becff4fded992607b156f274aa36bc07f8a4285a1d72cdc8?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Rina Shah"},"description":"An avid reader for as long as she can remember, Rina\u2019s love for books began with The Boxcar Children. Her penchant for always having a book nearby has never faded, though her reading tastes have since evolved. Rina reads around 100 books every year, with a fairly even split between fiction and non-fiction. Her favorite genres are memoirs, public health, and locked room mysteries. As an attorney, Rina can\u2019t help analyzing and deconstructing arguments in any book she reads.","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/author\/rina\/"}]}},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/a-child-called-it-father-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18828"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19103,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18828\/revisions\/19103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}