Glass Castle

ESL 400Koffi Dibi 02/26/2013 Learning how to value life. The glass castle is a memoir of Jeannette Walls (author and narrator). In this memoir, she is relating the neglectful way that her and siblings (Maureen, Brian and Lori) have been raised by their parents Rex and Rose Mary Walls. For this reason, the CPS (Child Protective Service) decided to make an investigation to know rather or not they should remove the custody of the Walls children to their parent. For me good parenting is being able to lead your children toward the real difficulty of life and I hink Rex and Mary Rose are doing it. In my opinion this will be a hard decision to take. The Walls family shouldn’t be separated because, even though they are neglected by their parent They are learning about life values which are living fearlessly and being responsible. Also we have admit the fact that the parents are educating them. So, although the parents are irresponsible they are not bad as some people think. The walls children are constantly exposed to a dangerous situation where they are always capable of Handling it.

On their house on North Third Street (in Phoenix), Jeannette was about to get sexually abused during the night by one the guy of their neighborhood because Mary Rose and Rex decided to let the doors and the windows open. Instead of being afraid, they run after the pervert to give him a correction while their parents were sleeping (103). Well common children with a lot of affection wouldn’t react that way. Because of the neglect hatitude of their parent they learned how to defend themselve. Years old Jeannette burned herself when she was cooking hot dogs. She spent weeks at the hopistal. Back home, she started to cook again because she was hungry and no one would do it for her(10- 15). Her carefree mother told her “You’ve got to get right back in the saddle. You can’t live in fear of something as basic as fire” It is probably an horrible thing to say to your child that just got a burning accident, but it true that you cannot be afraid of fire since it’s used to do a lot of things as it happens to cook.

Some other kids would be traumatized for life but Jeannette faced it. As you can see the Walls parent are pushing their kids to get over their fear which is a good thing to do. When the Walls were in Welch, the elders of the children (Brian, Jeannette and Lori) knew that they should take responsibility by contribute money for the household. So they are bringing extra money to help (196). I guess when you have irresponsible parent like they do have, you just have to learn how to be in charge.

This kids have the ability to think that “mom and dad won’t do it so let’s do it”. The parent are teaching the children not to wait for someone to do thing for them. That point shouldn’t be ignored. While they were moving around, Rose Mary and Rex took the time to educate their children, teaching them mathematic, physics, geology and how to read. The Walls children are smart at the point where they could help their mother with her work as a teacher.

In Welch, when Lori and Jeannette decided to save money to go to in New York, Jeannette could do others kids of her school homework and asignments in math, science and book report and get paid for it(224). Even though she is neglect, she get enough skill from her parents that made her good at school. The Glass Castle is a memoir of Jeannette Walls relating her childhood story with her dysfunctional parents. She is talking about the neglectful way that her and her siblings (Maureen, Brian and Lori) are raised.

Through examples we were able to see that even though Rose Mary and Rex are irresponsible, they aren’t as faulty as some people think. Because they learned to their children how to be fearless, responsible and they also educated them. So I suggest the CPS to let the walls family together because separating them can cause an emotional trauma which can negatively affect their personality . The society need strong people like them. The CPS should oblige Rose Mary and Rex to accept welfare to the government and make sure that the children live in a decent environment.