The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls: Just Bad, Or Unfit?

In her novel The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls discusses social problems that people deal with daily. One of the most basic issue we deal with every day is the kind of parents we want to be and the things we feel are the most important to teach our children. The lessons learned in childhood is eventually what shapes a person’s moral and values as they mature into an adult. Walls’ memoir enables us to see how Rex and Rosemary Walls choose to teach their children to see the positive side of their problems. The Walls teach their children that no matte the circumstances tosses at them, they can shoulder the burden. Rex and Rosemary Wells may not be considered good parent, and probably not even mediocre parents today, but their children turned into well-educated adults.

Benefits of the foster care system include: keeping children out of abusive homes; providing stability; and cultivating secure attachments. In general, proponents of the foster care system believe it plays an essential role in providing a safe and stable environment for maltreated, neglected, and abused children (Lockwood, Friedman, & Christian, 2015). In fact, “advocates suggest that family situations that necessitate the use of the foster care system are often very complex and therefore require patience and time. They emphasize that the temporary nature of foster care is the best solution while state agencies work to achieve family reunification or otherwise resolve the family crisis” (Geraldine & Wagner, para 4, 2015).

Jeannette Walls begins her memoir with an encounter with her mother, a homeless woman digging through garbage. Walls is “overcome with panic that she’d see [her] and call our [her] name… that [her] secret would be out” (Walls 3). This gives Walls the opportunity to answer the question she has created in the reader’s mind; how did this happen? Walls answers this with a recollection of her, to say the least, unique childhood. In writing The Glass Castle, Walls is forced to reflect on her life and family and realize how both have affected her as an individual; quotes of her mother are filled with litotes, descriptions and interactions with her father are surrounded with motifs of “being tough”, and the effects of being raised by these two characters

Author and journalist, Jeannette Walls writes about her life story and upbringing in her memoir The Glass Castle. The book definitely lived up to the high expectations set by others and drew me in further as I kept reading. I wanted to read the book because I heard that is was exceptional from several people including friends and family. As I kept reading I began to learn more about Walls’ story, and I became intrigued to know what was to come. I believe that the author chose to share her story because it shows why she is who she is today. She uses her voice well in order to relate to others in a way that shows that when times become difficult not to lose hope because there can be a pleasant ending.

Foster care is care for children outside the home that substitutes for parental care. The child may be placed with a family, relatives or strangers, in a group home (where up to a dozen foster children live under the continuous supervision of a parental figure), or in an institution (McDonald). No matter the form of placement, this type of upheaval in a young child’s life is bound to cause the need for many adjustments. Aside from having to adjust to a different family, peers, schooling and possibly a new culture, foster care can have a lasting effect on the child’s developmental growth, affecting the mental, social, behavioral and emotional aspects of their lives. These dimensions are impacted even more so in children placed in foster

The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls, is a story about a family whose parents seem to be neglectful, not abusive. Neglect is the act of failing to care for one’s property, or children in this case, whereas abuse is treating someone or something with cruelty or violence. Though the walls may have caused harm to the children, Rex and Mary Walls were more neglectful than abusive. During many events in the book the Wall’s children were forgotten about. Their basic wants and needs were unfulfilled, but when the kids realized this they had to keep smiling and forget because that what they were taught. Rex and Mary were neglectful parents due to their lack of care for their children.

Looking at The Glass Castle, we can compare the main character, Jeannette Walls, with her parents, Rex and Rose Mary Walls. Rex and Rose Mary are portrayed as very poor parents. Throughout the story some of their actions are utterly absurd. The dad, Rex, is an aggressive alcoholic. Due to his suspicions and paranoia of the U.S government, he is always forcing his family to move from town to town. Like the Rex, the mom, Rose Mary, values self-sufficiency and due to the family moving frequently, she struggles to keep a

Children in foster care are a group that are observed quite frequently due to their circumstances and the involvement of the government in their lives. In the United States, it was reported that, “There are more than 400,000 children living in the foster care system” (Center for Family Representation). It was reported, “The majority of children in foster care are very young, the average age of kids is nearly 9” (ACFARS Report). Being very young and put into a new lifestyle is hard to adapt to. In a report it is noted that, “Former foster youth experience more than 7

Many children are placed into foster care because their situation at home is not satisfactory according to The Department of Family Services. A lot of the situations deal with emotional, physical, and verbal abuse. A young girl named Tiffany was placed into foster care at the age of 8. The lack of a father role model in her life had life changing effects on Tiffany. As an already confused child, she was adopted by a foster home for females. It was run by females only. As a foster child at the time, when Tiffany would go out into public with either her “big sister” or foster parent, she would begin to understand that she wasn’t like most children because all the regular children had their mother and father. She began to develop insecurities

The children are often moved around to multiple foster chimes in a short amount of time, unable to feel as if they are wanted. Kaylee a foster kid said “It is hard to be moved around all the time. Permanence is important because then we can feel like we belong and settle, rather than get moved around and fell worthless because we feel that no one wants us.” She shows that foster children don't get the emotional support they need from having a long term, stable family. Without a long term family many who age out of the system don't get the financial support to substance themselves.

     It is unfortunate that in our society some children grow up without the opportunity of having a loving family to raise them. More unimaginable is children growing up with parents or family members that are abusive. Children raised in abusive environments that are reported to social services and removed from their home are placed into foster care. Foster care is defined supervised care for delinquent or neglected children usually in an institution or substitute home set up by the government. Some advocates claim that the government child care system is adequate, but others like David Van Biema of Time Magazine state that, “foster care is intended to protect children from neglect and abuse at the hands of

Foster care has undergone many changes throughout its history in the United States. Foster care’s first form was in the early 1800’s by the New York Children’s Aid Society’s orphan trains that aimed to get children out of institutions and off the streets (Crosson-Tower, 2013). These were poorly managed however. Families were not assessed by the agency and the children were not kept in touch with after they were “placed-out” (Crosson-Tower, 2013). While some children had good experiences, obviously some may have had horrible experiences.

The main goal of Foster Care is to help children learn and grow in a different environment when they are no longer safe in their home with their current parent/guardian. Although there are always ‘kinks’ in the system, where certain children may be misplaced or separated from their siblings, the

The foster care system is not beneficial to children because transitioning kids out of their home, into a foster parents’ residence, and then to a variety of other locations does not have a positive effect on children. In fact, transitioning foster kids often creates a great deal of issues that snowball into a much more serious effect. Some of the issues that arise from transitioning kids in foster care are the lack of preparation into adulthood, education success decrease, and having mixed feelings on various issues. Luckily, this process can be fixed. To raise fosters to become contributing, successful adults, it is necessary for a replacement of the foster care system. What it would be replaced with is an institution that values family

The protection and nurturance of children is a goal shared by everyone. Children thrive their best when they live in a safe, stable, and nurturing environment. The foster care system has its own faults where children can develop moderate to severe complications. Without reform, the nature of these problems will lead to children having mental health disorders, delayed development and behavioral