Molly Seymour
English 9
Glass Castle Thesis Essay
Most people would say that having unusual parents is both a danger and an
inconvenience. However some think that having unusual parents gives people skills that
most people don’t have access to. Jeanette Walls was cooking hot dogs at the age of
three and had a well-paying job right out of high school. There aren’t many people in
this world that could do that. This proves that one of Walls’ main messages is that
unusual parents can teach life lessons that will help later in life since Rex and
Rosemary Walls’ unconventional ways teach the kids to be supportive,
responsible, and to provide for their future families.
Unusual parents can teach their children how to be supportive of themselves and
others at a young age. Walls describes in the memoir how when she was three she
could cook hotdogs by herself. Even after her accident when she was burned, she didn’t
take any precautions and neither did her parents. Instead she just went right back to
cooking. Her parents even encourage her, as Walls describes her mom saying, “‘Good
for you,’ Mom said when she saw me cooking. ‘You’ve got to get right back in the
saddle. You can’t live in fear of something as basic as fire” (15). This shows that
although her parents seem to not care at all about her general safety, Walls learned to
provide for herself at a young age which will definitely help her later in life when she is
forced to make decisions on her own and raise a family.
Another thing unusual parents can teach their children is how to be responsible
at an early age. In the memoir, Walls describes how when the family moved to Welch,
the children were pretty much in charge of providing for themselves. Their parents did
very little to help and provide basic needs for them. For food the Walls children were
forced to root through the trash, Walls describes how: “When the other girls came in and
threw away their lunch bags in the garbage pails, I’d go retrieve them” (173). This
shows that Walls learned to responsible for herself at an early age. They learned that
Although her parents did not provide a lot for their children, in a way they did teach them
how to be responsible for themselves at an early age.
A third thing that unusual parents can teach their children is how to provide for
their future families. Walls describes many ways that the children had to fend for
themselves, leading to the fact that they were very supportive and responsible at a
young age. As Walls describes here, as she and her brother learn to defend
themselves: “…and then we loaded up the mattress with rocks until we were sure there
were enough to kill Ernie Goad and his friends, which was what we fully intended to do;
kill them and commandeer their bikes, leaving their bodies in the street as a warning to
others.“(165) this shows that the Walls children learned at an early age to defend
themselves and stand up for their family members.
Unusual parents can teach life lessons that will help later in life since Rex and
Rosemary Walls’ unconventional ways teach the kids to be supportive,
responsible, and to provide for their future families. If more people learned these
strong family values, the world would probably be a much better place because of it.
This doesn’t mean that more people should be negligent parents; Rex and Rosemary
Walls parenting styles are definitely not a good example, but parents should definitely
try to install more strong family values in their children. These ideas are very accessible
to the general people, people just have to try and eventually, they will succeed if they try
hard enough.