The Importance Of Childhood In The Desert, By Jeannette Walls

923 Words4 Pages

As time goes on, a person over time starts to understand the reality known as life, she should mature and leave behind a time that once used to be known as childhood. In this essay the author and her family will be traveling to different places which will show how her mom’s foolishness had an affect on the lives of her and her siblings. First, they go to the desert where things get out of control and Jeannette gets injured, then they go to Welch where Rose Mary tells her kids to do something that is not matured and adult like and at last they go to New York, where Rose Mary was still homeless by making decisions that had a bad impact on her and the others around her.
The first place that they go to is The Desert. In this place, when Jeannette Walls was 3 years old, Rose Mary told her to cook by herself and her dress caught on fire. Rose took her to the hospital where the nurses asked how she got burned and Jeanette's response was that she was cooking hot dogs. “Mom says I’m mature for my age,” I told them, “and she lets me cook for myself a lot” (Walls 11). This quote shows that Rose Mary didn’t act like an adult, she made her kids do things with them self because she thought that they …show more content…

She would let them make food, let them play outside when it was lightning, ate the candy bar to herself when her kids were starving. Jeannette has been taking over to look after the house and all the responsibilities that Rose Mary should’ve been. The reason why Rose Mary might be like, this is may be that she had to do the same thing when she was Jeannette’s age. In conclusion, Jeannette’s mom did have lots of flaws on not being a responsible mom that she should've been, but the Wall’s children learned how to be tough, educated independent and they were brought up with the support of each other. If it wasn’t for Rose Mary's toughness on the kids, they wouldn’t have become what they are