Dysfunctional Parents Essay Sample

📌Category: Child development, Psychology
📌Words: 910
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 18 June 2022

Parenting styles come in all styles and forms. Parents that exhibit a well-balanced parenting style guide their children from right and wrong. If their child is misbehaving inappropriately, they will call them out and explain to them what they did incorrectly. They strike a good balance between structure and love. Some parents have a hard time saying no to their children. Which leads them to give them everything and spoil them rotten. However, some other parents believe it is their children's job to figure out how to navigate the world, without parental guidance. There will always be those parents who would let their children explore past curfew. As well as talking back to their elders. In other cases, some parents may verbally and mentally abuse their kids. These types of parenting styles were exhibited in "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls. In her memoir Walls shares her life experience with her mentally ill and dysfunctional family. Rex and Rose Mary Walls showed neglect and immaturity toward their children proving they were unfit parents.

Jeannette, Brian, Lori, and Maureen lacked the attention needed from their parents, which caused the children to fend for themselves and learn things themselves. One example shared was when Walls was three years old. She wrote: "I was three years old... I could hear Mom in the next room singing while she worked on one of her paintings. Juju, our black mutt, was watching me. I stabbed one of the hot dogs with a fork, and bent over and offered it to him." ( Page 17) This example presents the selfishness of  Mary Rose, Jeannette's Mom. Having a three-year-old cook hotdogs for herself. Due to the fact you were too into your paintings. It is dangerous, even though she knows what she is doing. She is only three. It surely turned out to be that way. Walls explained her dress caught fire and was severely burned. She still has the burn marks to this day. Cooking at three sounds wonderful, but shouldn't you assist? That would be nice, and it would have saved you a trip to a hospital. From this paragraph, it  appears Mary Rose cares more about her paintings than her own daughter's safety. Another experience was when her father was trying to teach her to swim. In the past, she would cling to the sides of the swimming pools and make her way around. The day Rex decided to take the family to the local "Hot Pot" (a natural hot spring) and teach Jeannette forcefully to swim. She explained: "He put an arm around me, and we started to cross the water. Dad was dragging me. I felt terrified and clutched his neck so tightly that his skin turned white. "There, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Dad asked when we got to the other side. We stared back, at this time, when we got to the middle, Dad pried my fingers from around his neck and pushed me away. My arms flailed around, and I sank into the hot, smelly water. Dad pulled me into the shallow water. I was spitting and coughing and breathing in uneven coking gasps. When I recovered, Dad picked me up and heaved me back into the middle of the Hot Pot. "Sink or swim!" He called out. For the second time, I sank. I kicked and flailed and trashed my way to the surface, gasping for air, and reached out to Dad. But, he pulled back, and I didn't; I'd felt his hands around me until I'd sunk one more time. He did it again and again, until the realization that he was rescuing me only to throw me back into the water took hold, and so, rather than reaching for Dad's hands, I tried to get away from them."  (Pages 107-108) The characteristics displayed by Rex Walls show he is the type of parent that many would consider an authoritative parent. The answer will never be no. There will be no excuses. He did not care how to show Jeannette how to swim. He constantly repeated "Sink or swim" which explained he did not care how she would get there. He rather has her drown than teach her. He is not the kind of Dad, that would take his time and demonstrate how to swim to his daughter kindly. He could have but decided force and fear would teach her the best.During another excruciating period during Jeannette's childhood, she remembered her brother Brian being molested by their Grandma Erma. Her father decided not to take his children's side but, take the side of his perverted mother. She explained: "All we heard was the front door opening upstairs, then Mom and Dad's voices and Erma beginning the long narrative of her grievances against us. That was followed by the sound of Dad stomping the stairs into the basement, furious at all of us, me for back talking Erma and making wild accusations, and Lori even more for daring to strike her grandmother and Brian for being such a pussy and starting the whole thing. I thought Dad would come to our side once he'd heard what had happened, and I tried to explain. "I don't care what happened!" he yelled. "But we were just protecting ourselves," I said. "Brian's a man, he can take it," he said. "I don't want to hear another word of this. Do you hear me?" (Pages 232-233) Rex once again proved to his children, that they could not rely on him if they needed his help. He rather not face the reality and stand up for his children. In his case, he believed his mother was right and had the last words. Erma's horrible actions lead the children to defend themselves, without approval from their Dad. The safety and privacy of his children were not important to him.

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