Shattering Truths of The Glass Castle: An Analytical Essay
No one’s parents are normal; everyone has baggage in some form or another. Maybe they are overbearing helicopter parents, or maybe they consider their careers to be of the utmost importance, sacrificing quality time with children for work. Maybe they are intensely academics-focused tiger parents, or maybe, like Jeannette Walls describes in her bestselling memoir The Glass Castle, they border on destruction with their free-spirited nonchalance about what it means to be a parent. The very essence of parenting can typically be summed up in archetypes consisting of people, with their own natural priorities, making decisions they think will best benefit their children in the long run. Through careful surveillance, monetary funds for their futures, academic prowess, or important life-lessons learned from real-life experiences, parents are people expected to guide their children through life so that they, in turn, may one day become …show more content…
Jeannette Walls’ earliest memory was being on fire, a result of having to cook herself hot dogs at three years old, and staying in the hospital for almost six weeks healing. Used to getting three meals a day in the hospital, Jeannette noted that “A few days after Mom and Dad brought me home, I cooked myself some hot dogs. I was hungry, Mom was at work on a painting, and no one else was there to fix them for me,” (Walls 15). Left alone and hungry, Jeannette found it more feasible to ignore any possibility of fear in order to feed herself during a time that the Walls family did actually have food in the house. She put herself in known danger so she could feed herself, solely because neither of her parents were present or willing to help. Only in the other room, Rose Mary was too invested in her painting to consider feeding her toddler-aged
No one’s parents are normal; everyone has baggage in some form or another. Maybe they are overbearing helicopter parents, or maybe they consider their careers to be of the utmost importance, sacrificing quality time with children for work. Maybe they are intensely academics-focused tiger parents, or maybe, like Jeannette Walls describes in her bestselling memoir The Glass Castle, they border on destruction with their free-spirited nonchalance about what it means to be a parent. The very essence of parenting can typically be summed up in archetypes consisting of people, with their own natural priorities, making decisions they think will best benefit their children in the long run. Through careful surveillance, monetary funds for their futures, academic prowess, or important life-lessons learned from real-life experiences, parents are people expected to guide their children through life so that they, in turn, may one day become …show more content…
Jeannette Walls’ earliest memory was being on fire, a result of having to cook herself hot dogs at three years old, and staying in the hospital for almost six weeks healing. Used to getting three meals a day in the hospital, Jeannette noted that “A few days after Mom and Dad brought me home, I cooked myself some hot dogs. I was hungry, Mom was at work on a painting, and no one else was there to fix them for me,” (Walls 15). Left alone and hungry, Jeannette found it more feasible to ignore any possibility of fear in order to feed herself during a time that the Walls family did actually have food in the house. She put herself in known danger so she could feed herself, solely because neither of her parents were present or willing to help. Only in the other room, Rose Mary was too invested in her painting to consider feeding her toddler-aged