Jeannette Walls The Glass Castle: A Mother's Childhood

When has someone achieved maturity? They achieve it when they have fully developed their mind and are able to fend for themselves successfully. In The Glass Castle , Jeannette Walls illustrates her childhood with a mother who acted more like her children then a responsible adult. Rose Mary did not nurture her children in a typical way, but ultimately the children must fend for themselves. Fending for herself and her siblings affects Jeannette’s adult feelings regarding her mother because of how it taught her to not be dependent on others.

The memoir begins when Jeannette is three years old and was cooking hot dogs by herself. Her mother allowed her at three to cook hot dogs with boiling water while she painted. Rose Mary was in another room

painting and minding her own business. Only when Jeannette's dress catches on fire does Rose Mary run into the room and acts like a mother. Rose Mary’s actions prior to Jeannette burning herself were neglectful, she allowed a three year old to be around boiling water while she went to go paint. The neglect that Rose Mary has towards her children continues throughout their childhood and it prepares them for surviving in the adult world. By allowing Jeannette to cook by herself at the age of three, Rose Mary prepares them to be self sufficient and not dependent on others to survive.
The FAmily moves to Welch, Virginia where Jeannette’s grandparents from her father’s side live. There they buy a shack at 93 Little Hobart Street and the family of 6 move in. The family falls into a pattern and one day a royalty check from Rosemary's land in Texas comes in allowing the family to buy luxurious food like ham. The family enjoy the ham for a few days and since they don’t have a refrigerator, the ham has maggots inside of it by the end of the week. Jeannette goes to her mother, telling her that the ham is “full of maggots” (172). Rose Mary then tells JEanette to not be picky and to just cut off the parts with the maggots. The nonchalance with her children represents how much Rose Mary cares for the wellbeing of her children. She told Jeanette to cut off the parts with magots and continue eating which would possibly give JEanette a disease. The carelessness Rose MAry has about the food her children are eating, as long as it doesn’t bother her shows how childish she acts. The selfishness, a childish trait, of Rose mary only thinking about herself shows how she acts more like a child then JEannette. Allowing the children fend for themselves and not giving them help provides Jeannette with life lessons that lead her to success in NEw york
JEannette leaves Welch to begin her life in New York.

She goes to Barnard, the female version of Columbia university. Jeannette's parents show up in New YOrk with style, they drive a van that breaks down and makes the news. Later on Jeanette has become magazine writer and marries a man named Eric. One day, Rose MAry shows up at Jeanette's shared apartment at Park Ave. and tells her that she needs 1 million dollars. Jeannette obviously befuddled asks what the one million is for, Rose mary responds with how her brother, JEanette's uncle died and now she had to buy the land that he owned. Jeannette makes the connection that since her uncle's land was worth one million dollars, her mother's land was worth the same. Jeannette tells her mother that she cannot give her one million dollars, and Rose MAry tells JEanette that she is disappointed in her. The immaturity that roseMAry possess within this scene is immense. Rose Mary had the audacity to ask her daughter for one million dollars, a very sizeable sum just so that she could keep land within the family. Even when JEanette declines because amassing that kind of money was very hard to do, her mother tells her that she is disappointed in her. Just because Jeanette did not have the funds to go along with Rise MAry;s crazy scheme, Rose Mary is disappointed for not letting things her way. Being disappointed or sad over not getting one’s way is a very childish trait, and proves how immature Rose Mary is. The childish attitude that rosemary has as an adult affects JEanette's lifestyle, it makes Jeannette able to live life responsibly and not spend tons of money on items just because she wants to have

it.
Rose Mary’s parenting skills are not desireable. She neglected her children at an early age, and did not care about what foods were being put into her children and believed that her needs should always come first. Neglect, uncaring and selfishness are all traits one sees in children’s actions over toys, Children, once done playing with toys will leave them out and neglecting to notice them for possibly the rest of their lives. But once their attention is focused on that toy they will give no quarter as to other people’s feelings to batain that certain toy and once obtaining it they will not share it with anybody else. Rose MAry’s actions are very similar to how a child acts towards a toy showing how immature and infantile she is and how she never matured when she became an adult.