Walls vs. Real Parents
The
Glass Castle tells a story of a family with two parents who were far from
ordinary parents who care and nurture their children. In fact, it can be said
that Rex and Rose Mary Walls were, in many ways, unfit parents because they let
their children do what they wanted with little guidance and also subjected them
many times to squalor and hunger. However, although Rex and Rose Mary were
basically dysfunctional parents and could have had their children taken away
from them, they obviously were not all that bad for their children because, in
the end, the Walls children managed to grow up fairly successful.
Many times, the living conditions
for the Walls family were far from manageable. For instance, in Welch, they
lived in a house that was falling apart and had no indoor plumbing. If any
employee of social services were to see this house, the children would be
immediately removed and put into foster car, which, undoubtedly, seems like the
best thing for them at the time. However if the Walls children were to be
raised in foster care, not only would the family be separated and torn apart,
but the children would not have learned the same life lessons that they did
growing up with Rex and Rose Mary. Rex and Rose Mary cared just enough about
their children to keep them around, but if it were any worse Child Protective Services
could have easily taken their children. Rex and Rose Mary did teach their
children a lot about the world and they were very intelligent, but they barely
got by on the basic necessities.
Rex and Rose Mary taught their
children many lessons about life and because they moved so much the children
were exposed to places that most children have not ever seen and probably will
not see. One of the things that Rose Mary taught her children was that
“you should never hate anyone, even your worst enemies.” "Everyone has
something good about them," she said. "You have to find the redeeming
quality and love the person for that" (144). In Arizona, the kids
learned about the stars from Rex when he explained which stars were part of
constellations. As a special gift, he gave each of the children a star and said
that they could have it forever. This was in fact a lie, they could not
actually have the star, but the children did not know that and they probably
never will. In Battle Mountain, Jeannette learned how to “sink or swim”(Walls
66), literally. Rex teaches Jeannette how to swim by
literally forcing her to sink or swim. Rex trained Jeannette to stay afloat so
she did not get thrown back into the water. This strategy is representative of
Rose Mary and Rex's general approach to parenting. Refusing to coddle their
children, they often present them with challenges, some life threatening, that
the children are forced to handle.
When the Walls family moved to Welch,
the children really relied on each other to survive. Their parents had become
very neglectful towards the children and they were put on the back burner
because their own lives were more important than their children’s lives. Rose
Mary had gone off to a summer class and came back and only wanted to paint. She
did not want to go back to work; all she wanted to do was paint. This also
meant that she did not want to cook either. 'Mom didn't like
cooking much--"Why spend the afternoon making a meal that will be gone in
an hour," she'd ask us, "when in the same amount of time, I can do a
painting that will last forever?"--so once a week or so, she'd fix a big cast-iron
vat of something like fish and rice or, usually, beans'(56). At this point in
time the Walls children became extremely self sufficient.
In the article
“What Makes a Good Parent?” Robert Epstein talks about the list of the ten most
important qualities parents should have. The parents in The Glass Castle had a very interesting way of parenting that was
somewhat successful. Rex Walls rates about a 3 in the realm of parenting. He
has a few good qualities about him, but there are more things wrong with his way
of parenting than good. He allows for his children to be independent beings and
find their own ways to entertain themselves. His children were very
self-sufficient and learned how to survive on their own at a very young age. At
times, Rex was also very loving and affectionate towards his kids, especially
Jeannette. Even though he could not provide for his family consistently he made
up for it in other ways. For instance, he took the time to teach the kids about
the world and gave them special things, like stars as birthday presents.
However, Rex was not the best provider financially, he also drank and was drunk
in front of his kids and acted very inappropriately in front of them. Rex and
Rose Mary also fought with each other in front of the kids, and that did not exactly
give them the best example of being a responsible parent. They should have
dealt with their problems in private.
However, Rose Mary taught the
children very well, and gave them the education that they needed to be
successful. She also tried to make sure that the children were fed when they
had food, and she did the regular things that other mothers do: cleaning, and
making sure the children had some sort of clothing on their backs. Rose Mary
was also very tolerant. She always supported Rex and his endeavors, even when
it was not out of the best interest of their family. She also supported Rex
when he said that they had to "skedaddle" and she would pack up the
children and made sure that they had the basic necessities to live. However,
Rose Mary also neglected her children when she was painting and she was not
very good about managing her problems. She depended on the children to help her
when she was in need of help. In a way her kids were parenting her instead of
her parenting them. The children helped her grade assignments, she slept in and
left it up to the kids to get ready to go, and she would escape into her own
world to paint pictures. Rose Mary and Rex raised 3 successful children and one
"failure" so they were 75% successful in raising their children, so I
guess you could say that they ironically did something right.
When Jeannette moved to the city and
her parents followed soon after. She did not want leave them in the dust, but
she also did not want to see them leave her life forever. She had said “I
didn't know what to do. Part of me wanted to do whatever I could to take care
of Mom and Dad, and part of me just wanted to wash my hands of them”(256). She
had also said “I think that maybe sometimes people get the lives they want” (236).
Her parents definitely got the lives that they wanted because if they wanted
otherwise they would have stayed in one place and committed themselves to one
place and not “skedaddled”.
Often, Parents nowadays are also bad
parents. The latest news story that just came out this week said that there had
been a nine-year old little girl named Savannah Hardin that had been ran to
death by her mother and grandmother for lying about eating a piece of candy. This
is what one could say is extreme parenting. This little girl died because she
lied about eating candy bar. That is an absolute tragedy. Her Mother and
Grandmother were arrested and are being charged with the death of Savannah
Hardin. This case is very extreme and this case makes Rex and Rose Mary Walls
look like the perfect parents. This case is extremely sad and upsetting, but it
validates that there are bad parents in the world, some worse than others.
In the end, Rex and Rose Mary did
somewhat of a good job raising their children and it was good that the children
grew up the way they did because it taught them to be independent,
self-sufficient, successful human beings. If they were raised any other way
they would not be the people that they are today, and Rex and Rose Mary deserve
some credit for letting their children be their own individual persons and
learn from their own mistakes.
Works Cited
Walls, Jeanette. The Glass Castle. New York: Scribner,
2005. Print.
Press,
Associated. "Savannah Hardin Forced to Run for 3 Hours, Dies; Jessica Mae
Hardin and
Joyce
Hardin Garrard Charged." WPTV. Channel 5 News, 24 Feb. 2012. Web. 26 Feb. 2012.
<http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/national/savannah-hardin-forced-to-run-for-3-hours-dies-jessica-mae-hardin-and-joyce-hardin-garrard-charged>.
Epstein, Robert.
"What Makes a Good Parent?" Scientific American Mind, Nov.-Dec. 2010.
Print.
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