Unconditional love Love is the thing that holds a family together, without it the world would be a very lonely place. Hardships, misfortune, and trouble are all challenges people go through in life. With the support of family and love, it makes it possible to navigate through this mine field. In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls makes several connections to loving family unconditionally. In the book, there is evidence of the kids being neglected and brought up in tough living situations. There are many conditions where the kids should not forgive the parents, but the kids turn towards a positive viewpoint, look for the bright sides of things, and love their parents no matter what. With the parents knowledge of their children’s ability to forgive …show more content…
They loved them so much even though the parents didn’t deserve it most of the time. That is unconditional love. They grew up very poor and were often forgotten about. There dad was an alcoholic who disappeared for days at a time, and bouncing from job to job. When he was home and drinking he “turned into an angry-eyed stranger who threw around furniture and threatened to beat up [their] mom or anyone who got in his way”(23). Most of her memories of her dad are him being drunk, which turns him abusive and rude. They don’t have much money so she looks at is as good opportunity for her father to stop drinking. Jeannette never only sees her dad as an alcoholic like she should, she still cherishes his love. Along with her father’s drinking problem, her mother’s lack of rules and parental skills are out of the norm. She believes "people worry.... “people worry too much about their children. Suffering when they are young is good for them”(28). Her mother believes that they can learn on their own, showing that she does not care about the hardships her children are constantly dealing with in their environment. With this negligence the children are often forgotten about as well. Jeannette was put in many situations where she thought her parents “might not come back for her or they might not notice she was missing”(30). That is not how a child is suppose to feel about her parents yet she constantly …show more content…
They made many mistakes but don’t seem to care much because they know their children will forgive them. Jeannette 's mother sees her weakness for her father and uses it against her. When ever she messed up she told the kids they “should forgive her the same way [they] always forgave Dad for is drink”(174). She expects them to forgive her just like they forgive their dad because she knows they always think the best of them. She messes up endless amounts of time but the kids forgive them every time because they care about them. They are very selfish, and exploit their kids love. Her father knows she has “a soft spot for him the way no one else in the family did, and he took advantage of it”(209). Jeannette know knows her dad is using her for her forgiveness, but she doesn’t seem to mind because she loves him so much. Her parents use their love to get what they want, and since the kids unconditionally love them. Her mother and father constantly need Jeannette’s help and love, more than she needs theirs. If jeannette ever says no they become disappointed and make her feel bad. But since they are family, they always stick
Every day the safety and well-being of many children are threatened by neglect. Each child deserves the comfort of having parents whom provide for their children. Throughout the memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls explains the childhood from being born into the hands of parent who neglect their children. Many may argue that children need to grow with their parents; however, the removal of children is necessary if the parents disregard the kid’s needs and cannot provide a stable life for their children.
Jeannette and her siblings were all forced into completing tasks and taking on roles for themselves and their other siblings that are heartbreaking to read about and uncommon for most children to experience and tackle themselves. Much of this had to do with the lack of responsibility on their parents’ part and the ways they decided to live. As I have read the book, I have been amazed over and over again at the ways Jeannette handled the parental roles—both mother and father. She was very tough and never gave up, but you could tell there were other times she was just plain discouraged. One example we can see her using the roles to benefit her siblings was when her mom left to Charleston to “renew her teaching certificate” for 8 weeks and put Jeannette in charge of the money. She budgeted out $25 a week to provide the groceries and pay all of the bills that would need to be taken care of. Even though Jeannette gave her father (Rex) money when he asked, she
In the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the author's earliest memory is her injury at the age of three, and in this memory she is all but unhappy. Jeannette's childhood was full of inconveniences. The Walls family had a hard time conforming to society and shaping their future life for success. Rex and Rose Mary had different morals than others when it came to raising their children: Brain, Lori, Maureen and of course Jeannette. During her childhood, Jeannette was dealt with hardships, but showed maturity and independence throughout it.
The Glass Castle, a memoir written by Jeannette Walls is about a very peculiar family that worked together to overcome many obstacles that were thrown in their way. An alcoholic father and a free spirited mother leave four children to fend for themselves and find their own way through life. The Walls children are forced to find their own food and clothing and do everything in their power to protect one another.
While Jeannette’s father acknowledges that he is harming his family and tries to better himself, her mother never once tries to improve. She ignores all of her and her family’s problems, often times contributing more to the problem to benefit herself, worsening the situation for her children. The mother copes in selfish ways, disregarding her family in order to make her life more enjoyable. A perfect example is when the family is sitting in the living room without any food, trying to keep their minds off of hunger, when Brian, Jeannette’s brother, sees that the mother is discretely eating a chocolate bar. The mother tries to defend herself, saying that she’s a “sugar addict, just like [their] father is an alcoholic.” (Walls 174) The mother has never showed any signs of an addiction to sugar, and she’s clearly trying to get the kids sympathy for being selfish. She has behavior that is completely destructive for her family, and she needs to learn and practice better coping
...e another for support because of the parent/child role reversal in the home. The most mature and responsible people in the family were the children. However many times the children were left to their own devices to manage their lives, the children always welcomed Rex and Rose Mary back into their open hearts. This can be explained in part by a hidden rule of poverty being that people are possessions. In Ruby Payne’s A Framework for Understanding Poverty, she explains, “In poverty people are possessions, and people can rely only on each other” (Payne, p. 23). The Walls children relied on their parents to hold the family together, if only in a physical sense. Jeanette and her siblings forgave their irresponsible parents repeatedly. This teaches an important message to readers: by forgiving others you free yourself of festering anger, bitterness, and judgments.
When she and her Ma got home, it was almost dark outside. Frances saw something suspicious, her brother(Mike), shouldn’t be out at this time. Once they got inside, Frances and her mother tucked in all the children and went to bed themselves. Frances was still wondering about Mike, “What was he doing?” She fell asleep falling wiry of her younger brother. When she up, they had breakfast, and headed to their jobs. Frances was still wondering what Mike had done. “Was he stealing? No, their Da(father) had taught them better than that before he fell ill and died. She had never seen her mother cry until then.
In the memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls gives an insight on the life of a family living in poverty. As seen in the story, Jeannette struggles to live as she deals with an alcoholic father and a rather selfish mother. Throughout the years, the reader sees the children develop into different and grow into different personages. Walls demonstrates the idea that resilience is necessary because it helps poverty-stricken children by promoting the development of a one being independent while altering one’s perspective.
Considering she is still uncomfortable to discuss her personal life, she is not at peace with herself; she’s determined to keep her past a secret. Even later, she continuously sugar coated her past into something that didn’t seem so harsh. But then, something alters her feelings towards her parents. When she needed money for college, her father provided nearly all of it. Jeannette wouldn’t take it at first but once her father insisted and her mother agreed, she couldn’t say no: “So, when I enrolled for my final year at Barnard, I paid what I owed on my tuition with Dad’s wadded, crumpled bills” (Walls 264). Here she sees the redeemable qualities of her parents. It’s another one of those small moments where her parents prove Jeannette wrong of how they aren’t always awful parents. This is where the line between acceptance and forgiveness is disturbed. Despite those small moments of redeemable qualities, Jeannette still struggles to find her own peace. Forgiveness leads to peace, acceptance does not, this is the ultimate
love. The meaning of parental and family love in this novel is talking about the kids relationship
Most often, in most families, children look up to their parents for guidance as children view their parents as role models. However in The Glass Castle, this was not the case but the exact opposite.
Throughout her life, Jeannette Wall’s family has been anything but normal. Through her journey of self discovery she learns how to be independent from her parents and live a happy life. When Jeannette was young, she did not realize how chaotic her family life and living conditions were. As Jeannette grows up, she realizes her family has problems and tries to fix them herself to improve her family's life. As she becomes an adult, Jeannette takes matters into her own hands and separates herself from her parents. Throughout Jeannette’s voyage of self-discovery, her view of her family changes drastically through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood which leads to becoming independent from family.
But, as seen in The Glass Castle, love alone does not make for a good parent. Despite any amount of love they had for their children, Mr. and Mrs. Walls were weak. They were too weak to protect their children, too weak to change their ways for them, too weak to be honest with them, and too weak to shelf their pride for the sake of their children. A good parent also needs to be strong. They need to be resilient and able to provide for themselves and their children
In the most literal sense a mother is supposed to take care of her children and love them unconditionally, but Jimmy’s mother did the exact opposite. Jimmy’s mother and father would always have arguements, and this led to Jimmy’s mother leaving his father. Moreover, one day Jimmy’s mother dropped him and his brother off at Jimmy’s grandparents’ house. And as Jimmy’s mother is driving away Jimmy states, “I tried to pull free of Grandma’s hand, and I heard her say, ‘“Manana sea major con el favor de Dios.”’ Tomorrow will be a better day with God’s help. But as she led us into the house, I knew tomorrow would never be better. Something in my life had changed forever” (17). In that quotation, Jimmy is brought to realization that his mother would be leaving him forever, and Jimmy knows that this event would inevitably change the outcome of his life. Furthermore, the loss of Jimmy’s mother caused agony to dwell in his heart forever. In addition, the loss of his mother played an immense role on the rest of Jimmy’s life, and to this day, Jimmy never forgave his mother. This agony caused Jimmy to never trust anyone again. Also, throughout the next couple of years in Jimmy’s life, Jimmy would become familiar with the bars that he would soon call home. Jimmy Baca then states, “My parents never did come, and at thirteen years old I
...Doreatha Drummond Mbalia, “Their house, significantly a rundown, abandoned store, reflects no stability. The family members come and go like store patrons, having no sense of family love and unity.” Her parents would always argue and physically hurt each other. Her father was an abusive alcoholic and had burned down their house. He did not know how to express love because he did not experience love as a child. “Having no idea of how to raise children, and having never watched any parent raise himself, he could not even comprehend what such a relationship should be.... he might have felt a stable connection between himself and the children. (Morrison 85).”