Stitches

In David Small's book Stitches: A Memoir, one aspect that really stood out to me was the dysfunctional family structure. His family was not family oriented and lacked the love and nurture affection needed as a human being.

 David was brought up with no knowledge of being loved and cared for. As parents it was their responsibility to show affection and love and a sense of security for their child. Everyone in his family was isolated and did their separate thing. Usually a happy family sits around the dining room table enjoying their mother’s dinner and having a conversation with each other about every ones day, or just simply enjoying the company of one another. In David’s situation this was not the case. Dinners at his house seem like complete quietness and keeping to yourself and almost like a weird vibe and tension in the room of just unhappiness. After dinner the mother who throughout the book was just in a bad mood would slam doors and cabinets, the father would punch his punching bag and the brother play his drums.(pg15,16) Did the father punch his punching bag to deal with his unhappiness? Did the brother play the drums to not hear his mother’s anger?

 Feeling lonely and as a young child not understanding the isolation of every family member, David would draw and let his imagination take over. Some of his drawings in the book seem to turn into real life and you could see them walking out of the paper. In another occasion you see David falling inside his own drawing. These situations just seemed like him having his own mental escape of reality and problems that he just didn’t understand. (pg. 14, 48, 49, 61-63)



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The family had a lot of issues which caused the unhappiness and loss of love and affection. The mother was lesbian and could not be outspoken about it due to society. The mother was married to a man who she didn’t love and had two children. For her the role of a wife a mother was something maybe she didn’t want and only had to accept due to society. The grandmother also had some fault in David’s unhappiness; the grandmother was insane and was mean. David’s mother grew in that environment and carried it out in her own way with her family. The father was a doctor and was always busy and didn’t spend enough time with his family and neither showed any affection. Why didn’t the father show affection? Was he ever concerned or question his family structure and relationship?


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  When they had family vacations they would not enjoy them together, instead they would split up and go their different ways. (pg65) This was very odd due to the fact that a family vacation is supposed to be a vacation where your family is together enjoying once again each other’s company. In the book David wrote that he always left with his mother and his father and brother left together. Did David ever meet his father’s parents? Did the parents ever switched children in these so called family vacations? Why didn’t they go as a family?