Parenting Skills In The Glass Castle

“If you don't want to sink, you better figure out how to swim.” (66) This is Jeannette’s father Rex teaching her how to swim by throwing her back into the water after sinking the first time. It is also a good representation of Rose Mary and Rex’s parenting skills instead of coddling their children they present them with challenging them. Jeannette Walls’ shows very little personal reflection in The Glass Castle though she does show a lot of detail in the events but my understanding is that this novel is written like a piece of journalism and not a memoir.

Parenting skills were a huge issue in this novel for a lot of people, Rex and Rose Mary were free willed people who didn’t believe in making much of raising their children. Jeannette is very good at detailing her writing, in the novel she describes Rex as smelling like cigarettes. whiskey and hair tonic. Rex was a dreamer, often creating fantasies and stories for his children to be able to explain the realities of life. Rose Mary despised
This is the number one issue in The Glass Castle from Rex and Rose Mary’s failure to provide all four of those factors to their own children. An example of this is when Jeannette was 3 years old and cooking hot dogs by herself her dress then catches fire. After this incident the mother Rose Mary still allows Jeannette to cook for herself, this is an obvious sign of child neglect. Jeannette Walls writes those parts about her childhood a lot like a journal entry and not like a memoir. In Jeannette’s life, an event triggers her to have a thought about what happened when she was 3 years old she begins to think that fire is a recurring thing in her life. The quote also gives evidentiary support that in Jeannette’s writing she gives very little personal reflection and it is a very detailed piece of