The Walls family struggles with financial support, abuse, lack of supervision, addiction. Throughout the novel, Walls writes about her family life of dysfunction and how much a person can grow from struggle. Deeper into the story you will start to understand how one generation of parenting turns the children’s future ideas into a completely different way of living with stability and normality for themselves. Walls uses her parents as an example of what looks like free range parenting, but is actually harmful ignorance, neglect, and abuse towards their children.
Her father Rex, a very knowledgeable man, continues to influence his children with useful information and advice about life and the obstacles that it can throw. Jeannette looks up to her father and his dreams but disagrees with the lack of stability that he provides for their family. Jeannette tries to change her parents but later realizes that, “If [she doesn’t] want to sink, [she] better figure out how to swim. “(66 ). Her father not only uses this to try to teach her to stay a float in the water, it ultimately shapes the rest of her life and the person she becomes. Her father is a hard working man and wants to support his family but he fails, physically and mentally, to supply them with care because of his alcoholism.
Dad tells Jeannette, ‘Never play the slots. […] They’re for suckers who rely on luck’ (55). This is perhaps her Dads belief, implying that he has a skill at gambling when he really has a gambling problem. He also says things like, ‘Don’t I always take care of you?’ (17), as if they said yes means it’s true, when it couldn’t be further from the truth. At times Jeannette holds her emotions in, she reaches her boiling point, then finally explodes, “Who do you think you are?” [Dad] asked. “She’s your mother.” “Then why doesn’t she act like one?” I looked at Dad for what felt like a very long moment. Then I blurted out, “And why don’t you act like a dad?” (219-220). Rex reacts aggressively, only leaving Jeannette in more pain.
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Her mother, Rosemary has a unique but damaging way of expressing her love towards her children. As the artist she is, her mind and focus is elsewhere, making it difficult for her kids to be raised appropriately. Mom is blinded by reality and can’t accept the truth, ‘I like the world just fine the way I see it’ (97). Yet, Rosemary see’s it as “her world”, everything revolves around her. It’s almost as if she replaces her paintings with the love she neglects to express to her children; as if her art is her emotions, “I believe she thought of her paintings as her children and wanted them to feel that they were being treated equally.”(154).
Rosemary throws everything into her art and displays them in her homes , like a museum. If just a little bit of that interest could have been given to the children. She is also very passive with her husband and allows his flaws in parenting to be “okay”. Mom seems resigned to the fact that her husband controls her life, and she doesn’t try to break out of it. Even her wedding story involves Dad demanding to marry her and her just sort of conceding. ‘Your father wouldn’t take no for an answer’ (27), she tells Jeannette. This is also her answer for everything pertaining to Rex throughout their life.
Especially when it came to buying food, Rose gives the money to Rex for more alcohol. Not only does mom mistreat her children, she seems to have no common sense whatsoever. When Jeannette was 3, she was rushed to the emergency room. The doctors asked her what happened, ‘Mom says I’m mature for my age,’ I told them, ‘and she lets me cook for myself a lot.’ (11). Mom let Jeannette cook hotdogs for herself, leaving her with severe burn marks on her stomach. The scars not only made Jeanette insecure, it turned out to be a lifelong remembrance of the instability in her home.
The Grandmother Erma, (grandmother, should be one that is so special, more loving that your mother), was perhaps more damaging to Brian then the parents. The children needed a place to call home, and were reluctant to stay with Erma. Jeanette’s caretaker qualities were put to the test. Not only was her mother passive their whole life, but when it came to Erma, so was her father, ‘She’s just an old woman who’s had a tough life’ (3.1.27). Rex protected her as if her abuse towards Brian was no big deal. If just once, the parents could protect their babies and make them feel as if they mattered. Just once. Instead it led to moving from there too. No stability, nowhere to go, no Glass Castle, again. No child should have to constantly worry about the wellbeing of her siblings the way Jeanette did. It eventually shapes her life for the better, but the little girl in her, just one time, wanted to be the little girl. Erma is a disgrace as a grandmother , no wonder Rex is the way he is. Alcoholism is his way of not feeling his upbringing with Erma.
This strategy is representative of Rosemary and Rex’s general approach to parenting. Refusing to coddle their children, they often present them with challenges, some life threatening, that the children are forced to handle. The manipulation to appease their addictions and not face a normal reality ultimately pushes the Walls children into a stability of their own growing up. Jeanette held onto hope for so long as a child, wishing for dad to stop drinking, visualizing “The Glass Castle”, wanting her mom just to hold her and make everything ok. Jeanette was the caretaker growing up and it changed her pattern as an adult, thankfully not following in the destructive ways of her parents. Jeanette created her own Glass Castle.
