How Did Rex And Rose Mary Walls Fit Parents

Rose Mary Walls is far from being a caring mother or a positive role model to her children. She is unable to provide the basic necessities required for survival and even resorts to stealing what little resources the family has for herself; “I wondered if she had been looking forward to

In the memoir, The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls both Rex and Rose Mary Walls illustrate depictions of failure and defeat. It is certain beyond doubt that they were unsuccessful in society’s definition of success as parents. This was due to the neglect of assuming responsibility for raising and protecting their own children. However, Bob Dylan’s definition of success reads, “ A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.” Bob Dylan’s definition might prove otherwise, considering that Rex and Rose Mary to have accomplished their goals, since they only pursued their own interests. Yet this is still not the case, they are still considered unsuccessful.

There are many different kinds of parents. There are parents that are nice to their kids, spoil them and give them anything they want. On the other hand, there parents that are mean to their kids, make them do all the house work and provide bad living conditions for their children. The Walls parents would fall on the bad of the parent scale for many reasons. First both of the Walls parents are out of touch with reality. Second the parents act like kids and the kids have to act like responsible adults. Finally the parents are selfish, and care more about themselves than their own children. Both Rex and Rosemary Walls are unfit to be parents to the Walls children.

The Walls children are not only raised by parents that can’t hold down a job, but by parents who are also mentally unstable. In a recent study by Princeton University it was said that “ Long work hours, lack of autonomy, job insecurity, and a heavy workload are also associated with adult mental health problems.” (Princeton). No matter how bad of a “childhood” the Walls children had it’s worse because both parents can’t hold down a job. With both parents rarely working the children are left to fend for themselves, essentially raising themselves. The Walls children have a poor quality of life and a huge factor of their quality of life is because their parents can’t keep a job. For example if Rex Walls kept a job and didn't spend his money on booze the children would have food to eat. At one point in The Glass Castle it says “whenever Mom was too busy to make dinner or we were out of food, we’d go back to the dumpster to see if any new chocolate was waiting for us.” (Walls 125). Jeanette’s parents were so selfish that the children had to go to the dumpster to get a meal, and that problem could’ve been solved if either parent was dedicated to keeping a job and putting food on the table. The children also spent most of their childhood wearing the ripped and tattered clothes because their parents were unable to afford new clothes. Not only is this extremely sad, but if their parents had steady

Finally, Rosemary and Rex show the faults of parenting throughout Walls use of characterization .For example, When “Lori heard about a scholarship sponsored by a

A mother is a woman that loves her children despite all of their flaws, insecurities, and fears. A mother is a woman who will always worry about her children no matter how old they may grow, from age zero to age fifty-five. A mother is someone that will go hungry so that her children can eat, will walk barefoot so her children will have shoes, and will go poor paying for her children’s needs. These characteristics all describe a typical mother but not all describe Rose Mary Walls, the mother of four children in the memoir The Glass Castle. Instead of acting in a selfless manner rather than selfish, Rose Mary’s attitudes and behaviors are childlike to the point that her children must assume adult responsibilities because she refuses to. Rose

In the memoir The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls, she writes about her childhood and how she grew up with an alcoholic father, Rex, a careless and stubborn mother, Rose Mary, and her two sisters, Lori and Maureen, and one brother, Brian. The way her parents raised them from letting them do anything to sometime almost abandoning them is not what you would see in today's society that often and the parent sno get in trouble for it. While reading The Glass Castle, noticing the reasoning why the parents are so lenient, unless a choice could cause fatality, is because they have nothing to lose, the only way their life could get any worse is if one of their children died.The children had to learn how to do

Are Rose Mary and Rex Walls really unfit to be parents? The answer is yes, they are extremely unfit to be parents. Her parents Rex and Rose Mary do they bare minimum to get by, sometimes even not eating because they couldn’t afford it. Would Jeanette and her siblings been better off living in a foster care? This can be a yes or answer depending on the way you look at it. Yes they would be better in foster care by having food, a place to sleep, safe environment, and a caretaker. No also because the Walls family is so family based that separating them may cause more emotional and mental problems. Was it in the best interest to grow up with their parents or to be removed from the home? For Jeannette Lori and Brian living with their parents they

Few relationships are as deep as those between child and parent. While circumstance and biology can shape the exact nature of the bond, a child’s caretaker is the first to introduce them to the world. And as they grow and begin to branch out, children look to their parents as a model for how to interact with the various new situations. Through allusion, potent imagery, and nostalgic diction, Natasha Trethewey constructs an idolized image of a father guiding their child through life’s challenges only to convey the speaker’s despair when they are faced with their father’s mortality in “Mythmaker.”

A trauma narrative is a narrative that describes an experience or experiences that cause someone to be destressed and cannot be incorporated into their memory easily. Throughout her own traumatic narrative, Jeannette Wall’s describes different aspects of her everyday life that showcase various levels of significance. She is able to show how certain life events impact her plans for escaping her current socioeconomic status and her plans for the future. The text is also able to tell us about trauma, poverty, ourselves, and our society. Furthermore, the text demonstrates the impact that trauma and poverty can have and how they can have lasting effects. These concepts help us to think about our own life experiences and situations and they also show us how to be analytical about our society. Lastly, this narrative is able to reveal to us the different aspects of a traumatic childhood and how important and impactful this type of upbringing can be. Jeannette Walls uses her own traumatic autobiography to show that despite her adverse upbringing in poverty and passive and unattached parenting she was able to become successful. The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, shows the benefits and the value that can come from having a traumatic narrative. This is significant because it shows that an experience can shape a person, but a person can also shape the experience.

“In all our lives, there is a fall from innocence. A time after which, we are never the same.” – Stand By Me. Innocence can be found at any age or any point in one’s life. It means chastity, freedom from wrong, lack of knowledge, SIMPLICITY. When one has innocence the world seems easy without any worries, however that can all change when one loses their innocence. The loss of innocence can feel as though one has fallen into a black hole and can never escape, darkness, voicelessness, LONELINESS. In Amy Tan’s “The Joy Luck Club”, Nadine Gordimer’s “Once Upon a Time”, and Laurie Halse Anderson’s “Speak”, the authors use main and supporting characters to show a loss of innocence at a young age. In “The Joy Luck Club” loss of innocence is expressed through the old woman from the fourth parable, “Queen Mother of the Western Skies”. In “Once Upon a Time” loss of innocence is expressed through the young boy. In “Speak” loss of innocence is expressed though Melinda. Although all three of these characters go through the same struggle of loss of innocence, Anderson’s character Melinda is able to come to terms with her loss and regain her strength. In these three stories, Tan, Gordimer, and Anderson use the theme of loss of innocence to portray loneliness, fear, and barriers to show how one can learn from past experiences.

These curiosities should have been answer by a parent, Victor Frankenstein. However, Victor never put any effort in guiding the poor and innocent child. Evelyn Yeo in “How Does Emotional Abuse Affect Self- Esteem,” concludes that from the time of infant-hood to childhood, a child’s sense of self is defined by how he was treated and what he was told by his parents and primary caregivers. Infants especially, have no knowledge of who they are as a separate person so they rely heavily on their parents’ feedback. From parents’ trust, affection, and encouragement, the child will eventually grow up with confidence and achieve potential to make him or her parents’ proud. Overtime, self esteem will soon build upon them so they are prepared to be set in the real world (1).

It is important for teachers and educators to be aware of the impact that stress and trauma have on the life of children. As I was reading the book I could not help but go back to my own experiences and how they have affected me as a person. Growing up in a country that provided little opportunities for growth was challenging. My mother only finished fourth grade because my grandparents needed her to work on the farm. My mother wanted to have an education and mentioned that she cried for months when they forced her to leave school.

We all think children are all innocent and cute, but is that really true? We always give excuses for children’s misconduct, distracting ourselves from the real truth. Kids are capable of terrible things that adults quickly ignore. Children can be very scary because of their capabilities that most adults believe to be innocent mistakes. One story that explores this fear is Ray Bradbury’s “The Man Upstairs.”

Alice Miller wrote the book The Drama of the Gifted Child, which talks about a child who wanted nothing more than to please his parents. He felt like the best thing to do is please others and be perfect in everything he set out to do. Some children do what their parents say, some don’t follow the rules at all, but there is a child who did every single thing his parents told him to do. An ideal child that parents would adore but while he did everything they wanted he lost something. Himself; is what he lost in the midst of just focusing on what his parents wanted from and for him; he stopped dealing with his own life. He put himself on the back burner to please the parents who asked for so much and even took away a lot. Miller speaks on how it is because of the child’s own self pressure to be perfect that he experienced things adults go through at the time of still being a young boy. He never let himself feel remorse for his own actions, it was only failure and when it happened he bottled it up and never dealt with those feelings. It got to the point where he locked his child like self away to later then recover it after he became an adult.