Comparing The Struggle With Fathers In The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

After reading, The Glass Castle, it made me think about my life and the way I was brought up. I feel very lucky to have gotten the attention, schooling, and care I needed growing up. If I needed help with something, my parents were always right there and I could talk to them about anything. That’s not to say that Jeannette’s parents were not there for her. If anything her parents supported her in different ways. Jeanette’s parents took her siblings and her on adventures across the country and taught them that they did not have to have a lot in order to be happy.

What coping strategies should a child use when exposed to stressful situations? This is answered and explained in the memoir The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls as well as by other sources. The memoir is about a girl named Jeannette who was born into a poor family and the struggles her family goes through. The memoir continues to explain how she copes with each stressful event that she goes through. Successful coping strategies involve staying calm, and thinking positively, but failing coping strategies involve alcohol abuse.

Jeannette’s self-reliant behavior is frequently shown through her refusal of help from others. On one trip to retrieve her father from a bar, Jeannette’s father is so drunk that he can no longer walk. Another man offers to drive them home, and

The Castle is a movie primarily about a family sticking together and their fight for the right to live in their own home. The Castle’s portrayal of family is both positive and negative.

A father’s true objective lies in his mind and commitment to his family. Debauchery becomes irrelevant and a sense of achievement overcomes. Such standards set for an ideal father are mere facades of what was deemed “normal” in a typical white household. However that is not the case for Jeannette Walls. Unlike many, Walls has experienced a permissive childhood of exploration and adventure that brought about several realizations in her youth. One of these realizations was the concern of identifying the good will of an individual or the malicious intent they may bear. Though at the time, this was the least of her worries. What was undoubtedly coherent to Walls --- was the detriments of a father. The influence of a father that does not display unity, supply sufficient necessities, and presents ease diminishes his family’s happiness.

In the memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette walls, the author, was most influenced by her time in Battle mountain, as indicated by how she describes the memories there. She learned a lot of life lessons there and how her family loved her and would do anything for her. How her parents would try and provide for her even when they didn't like their jobs. Then again how her family would stick up for her and the hardships they went through when they lived there.

Jeanette's mother never seems to care whether or not Jeannette is being raised to reach her full potential. This parenting style shows Rose’s lack of responsibility. As Jeannette recalls, her “mom always said people worry too much about their children. Suffering when you’re young is good for you”(twenty-eight). Rosemary likes her kids to learn from experience.

A baby is born and on that day a parent makes a promise to take care of that child until the day the parents die. Unfortunately, that promise is broken once that child is 18 some early as 16 because they can legally get a job. In "The Glass Castle" Walls parents taught their kids to be self-sufficient at a very young age to reply on themselves. Being self-sufficient

He was the same person who gave her hope and broke it down. After letting her father borrow money from her, she perceived “I was mad at myself, but even madder at Dad. He knew I had a soft spot for him the way no one else in the family did, and he was taking advantage of it. I felt used” (Walls 423). She felt genuine betrayal and disappointment. This allowed her to grow out of the mindset that her father’s quick fixes were enough. Before leaving for NYC, Jeannette told her father “Go ahead and build the Glass Castle, but don’t do it for me” (Walls 487). She was taking the initiative of going to a healthy environment. Her father’s reckless alcoholism taught Jeannette to take action, and make sure she did not get stuck in the poverty-stricken life her father never tried to get out

My father pulled heavy carts for pennies. My mother sold jugs of water from the public fountain, charcoal, and grilled peanuts to get us something to eat” (166). Grace’s mother and father work hard to provide for her. Raising Grace is their primary goal, and later in their lives, they take it a step further and move to America to provide better opportunities for Grace. Having a child in Haiti forces Grace’s parents to view Haiti differently than before. Rather than just surviving and making ends meet they also have to address that they are going to raise a child in the poor conditions around them. This motivates her parents to work harder and eventually move to provide better opportunities for their children. “Night Women” is another story that shows how family is an important motivator. The narrator of this story resorts to prostitution to provide for her son.

She thinks that her father did not do enough to her mother and that he was supposed to give her mother everything for she felt that she very much deserved it all. It is so obvious that she is very much annoyed by the fact that her father was so poor and could not support the family financially; describing him to a person whose pocket was not going to

In contrast to Pip’s family, Jeanette’s irresponsible parents despise the upper class and don’t believe in pursuing a common

“He eventually married that bitch, and she was a horrible step-mom” Jean said. “She was rather abusive, and would hit you as soon as look at you. I much preferred my birth mother, she taught us all to sew and crochet. She was a very nice lady.” And that she was, she taught her all the things you could learn. She now has a home, where her daughter now lives, and her son, takes care of the abode.

Jeanine always has gotten a lot of attention throughout her life and her parents really love her and try to give her as many opportunities as they can in order to make her future better. Jeanine’s life was always full of interesting things like traveling, going shopping, going out with friend, etc. She is very close to her father, Erick. Whenever she has a choice, whether to go out with her friend or to spend time with her father, she would choose to stay with her father and watch a movie or go for a walk with him. For Jeanine, her father means a lot and he is the one who taught her life.

Jeanette seem very frustrated upon her arrival. She sat on the black couch next to the lamp. While sitting down, she rippled her fingers one by one up and down her dress. As the session continued, it looks that she was impatient because she was shaking her legs. Jeanette, yells out loud with deep voice that her mother is weak and her father is uncaring. It got even worse when she talked about her mother leaving to rectify her teachers license. She stood up and paced back and forth throughout the room hitting her hand speaking on the duties that she had to fulfill. Jeanette then sat down clam and elaborated about the time Mr. Wells to her to the bar. As she talked about attendance at the bar. She mentions that someone from the neighborhood had been watching their family and reported them to social services. Two days later social services arrived at their house for a visit. They examined the house and saw that there was food in the house and that the father was taking care of the children. Before leaving their neighborhood social services went to their neighbors. The neighbors reported that their mother and father I good parents that seek out to provide for their family. The school was then contacted and reported that the children are fine and Mrs. Wells works with the school district.