The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls Family Issues

When you first hear the title of “The Glass Castle” written by Jeannette Walls you may think it's a book about fairy tales. However that’s not the case, imagine not being able to experience childhood the way it’s supposed to be with toys, friends to play with, and parents when they come home from work cook a huge family dinner. This is the case for Jeannette Walls. She is the second oldest of four children and grew up needing to take care of freewheeling, creative, but neglecting drunken father Rex who could never keep a job and oblivious mother Rosemary who was an artist. Also while looking after her younger siblings Brian and Maureen with her oldest sister Lori. Throughout the book, she was faced with challenges normal children shouldn’t

Not only with money and food but other issues that came their way that were also substantial. Issues such as Rex becoming a raging alcoholic. Towards the end of their stay with their parents before moving to New York to start a better life, the Walls children had a piggy bank they named Oz. In Oz, they all pitched in money to help each other move out until they were all out of the house away from their parents. Before the oldest was able to move Rex found Oz and stole all of their money they had saved up (Walls 228). This was due to his alcoholism, he always found ways of getting money from his children to pursue his addiction. His addiction caused him to have massive amounts of rage that he took out on his family. Another struggle they faced was moving in with their psycho family in Welch. When they didn’t have anywhere to go they had no choice but to move in with Rex’s mother Erma in Welch. She was abusive, rude, and unfair to the children by refraining them to laugh in her house. Erma was caught molesting Brian and when she was confronted by Jeanette it resulted in Erma and Lori getting into a verbal and physical fight (Walls 146). Lastly, the children didn’t have proper schooling when they were younger. Due to them moving all the time they never had a school to go to so their parents would teach them while they were moving around from town to town and when they lived in the desert. Eventually, they

Rex definitely had his ups and downs. Despite his drunken behavior and neglecting the fact that he needs to provide for the family, he was a great father. He cared deeply for his children and was especially close to Jeanette who he called “Mountain Goat”. There were a couple times where he displayed great qualities a father should have. One instance was when they were living in the desert and the kids were upset they didn’t get any gifts because the family didn’t have any money. So Rex decided to take one kid out at a time and gave them a star as a present (Walls 39). Another time when he displayed qualities of being a father was when Jeannette was going to drop out of college because she didn’t have any money to pay off her tuition. Rex was way too proud of her for her to give up so he showed up with a bag full of cash so Jeannette could finish college (Walls 264). When the end of Rex’s came closer due to a rare and incurable illness, Jeanette met with her father who gave her the news. Her reaction to the news was one that beautifully represents the love of family, “But despite all of the hell-raising and destruction and chaos he had created in our lives, I could not imagine what my life would be like- what the world would be like- without him in it. As awful as he could be, I always knew he loved me in a way no one else ever had.” (Walls 279). At that moment she had forgiven