People who become parents, generally understand that they have to raise their children in a certain way so that they will become healthy and functional members of society. Most of these parents also understand that if they do not give their children proper care and attention, their child may not have a successful future. Often times, parents would argue which method is the best to raise their child and which way is wrong. Everyone seems to have their own definition of parenting. Most people however, would disagree with the way Rex and Rose Mary Walls in The Glass Castle raised their children. Some believe that the Walls’ children would have been better off in foster care, others do not. I believe that the Walls’ children would not have been …show more content…
She realizes what it could mean if he had found out that the Walls’ children were being neglected. “But if the child-welfare man got it into his head that we were an unfit family, we’d have no way to drive him off. He’d launch an investigation and end up sending me and Brian and Lori and Maureen off to live with different families” (Walls 194). Siblings are very commonly separated when put into the foster care system and Jeannette was scared that she would be separated from her family. Jeannette and her family would all be separated from each other and would lose family relationships which they had. Their family staying together is what kept them going “But we always fought back, usually as a team” (165) and no matter what problems they faced, at the end of the day, they had each other “‘we may not have insulation,’ Mom said as we all gathered around the stove, ‘but we have each other’”(176). It should come to no surprise that researchers found that “Children usually do better psychologically and that the placement is commonly more stable when they are put into the same foster care home with each other, especially when the children are familiar with each other and have a pre-established positive relationship” (Smith). This type of transition would disrupt what normal family life the children had before foster …show more content…
Depending on the child’s age, they could feel out of place and not fit in with their new family. Furthermore there are laws and regulations in place to keep the children in foster care safe and well accounted for, but sometimes, these laws get in the way of regular family life. Since there are rules for foster parents or caregivers, some foster families cannot engage in particular activities. As a foster parent, Shannon Hernandez found that “even a camping trip for one night as little as 30 miles away or a weekend trip to a different city, both routine things for families to do and positive experiences for children. The rules governing this type of activity by caregivers may require the approvals of the social worker, the biological parents, the parents' attorneys, and the child's attorney” (Hernández). These type of rules although they were written to make sure that foster children do not get neglected and abused, highly restrict what activities a foster family can engage
When children are forced out over and over again it makes them feel unwanted or that they did something wrong. Patricia George writes, “Shuttling children off to a strangers home for a period of days or weeks, only to be potentially shuttled off to another home… simply underscores the frightening and traumatic experience of seeing ones family fall apart” (George and Walker). Not only do children have to deal with the constant moving around, they also have to deal with complications such as sibling separation. Sometimes a family isn't always looking to foster or adopt more than one child at at time so social workers tear brothers and sisters apart. In some cases, siblings will never see each other for years or even ever
The Permissive Parents The parenting paradigm best exemplified to Rex and Rosemary Walls in The Glass Castle Jeanette Walls is the permissive parenting paradigm. The parents of Jeanette are more reactive than demanding to the children (Cherry, “The Four Styles of Parenting”). Jeanette at one point expressed, “I loved the desert, too… we’d catch scorpions and snakes and horny toads. We’d search for gold, and when we couldn’t find it, we’d collect other valuable rocks…” (21).
Once the foster parents feel that they can not control the child's emotional outbursts, or misbehaving, they become disconnected. “Other child welfare authors have documented the intrapsychic conflict that many foster care children experience as a result of traumatic separation from biological parents. This conflict is often manifest by expressed or observed feeling of guilt, rejection, abandonment and shame” (Gonzales). The foster parents begin to feel helpless, which can lead them to stop caring for the child, causing more emotional detachment for the
The foster care systems has and will always be a part of society. The idea of a foster care system has always been around, even if it was not properly attained in the past. There has also been other methods to try to find placement for children with no or bad homes, for example the orphanage train, living with widows or living house to house in a community. Now in today’s time, we have an organized system of foster care with two different types of homes for children. For example we have group homes, which is a care facility that houses six or more children at a time.
Parental failure induces children to mature quickly Failure of parental advocacy can permit children into reaching adulthood. Children who grow up with irresponsible and carefree parents must grow up faster than children who do have responsible and mature parents. In the book The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, exemplifies how irresponsible the parents were toward their children by neglecting them and that acquired the children to care for themselves. For instances Jeannette’s mom did not want to take responsibility for her family who was struggling with money.
Many of the placements are done to carry out the systems policies and other placements are done if foster parents don’t meet the child needs. Children are less likely to be moved many times if a foster family is prepared to meet the child 's challenging needs. The foster care system is also in need of more social workers that will ensure that the child is placed in a good family so that they are not moved several times. Plenty of placements are also done if the child is initially placed in short-term care but needs to be moved to long term. However, the more changes a child experiences decreases the chance of them returning home or being adopted.
Witnessing my father chasing down my mother because of a pointless argument of my parents not caring about my siblings and I where abouts would be devastating to say the least. In The Glass Castle Jeannette and her siblings chose to appreciate the small things as they got older because they were not given materialistic items or a hot meal when they could afford it. Their mother made poor financial decisions and hardly ever put the kids first. For example, the mom chose to rent a piano over buying Brian a pair of male jeans. He had to suffer wearing girl clothes that did not even fit.
As a result of this parenting style “We’re going to Phoenix” Walls 89. They didn’t punish Jeannette for shooting Billy they just blew it off and moved to a different state. In the book The Glass Castle Jeannette Walls, the narrator displays her parent's parenting skills as
a. Foster parents can have an impact on the lives of a foster child by giving them a safe place to stay where they can feel loved and cared for. Foster parents can also provide the love and support that these children need especially if they came from an abused or neglected home. According to (Hasenecz, 2009) there have been several shocking stories about children being abused and neglected while in foster care or even worse reports of social workers who knew of the abuse and neglect and failed to report it or do anything about
I know that because of experience. I hated foster care because it separated me from my family including my sisters. I really loved them but presently I don't care about them because I basically don’t know them anymore. That's what happens when you separate a family they end up not even knowing the person anymore they can end up to be a completely different
After Jeannette got a job in New York as a writer, she would attend parties, art galleries, and etc. When people ask about her background and parents, Jeannette doesn’t tell the exact truth because she felt embarrassed about her parents. She also didn’t want to be looked down upon because of her past. Maureen, Jeannette’s baby sister, left for California after getting out of jail for stabbing her mother. Jeannette felt guilty and sorry for not being able to give Maureen the life she had wanted.
The Wall family is a very unique family that does come across as dysfunctional. The family is composed of Rose Mary Walls a mother who is free spirited and is an artist, a father Rex Walls, who is a very logical thinker, but a full of paranoia and is an alcoholic, and the four children Lori, Jeanette, Brian, and Maureen. This family although appears dysfunctional is unique in their own way as well. The main strength that has stood out is that even though the family is dysfunctional they all still love each other. The father Rex has problems of alcoholism, and doesn’t take responsibility for his actions and has even stole from his family, but yet Jeanette still loves him regardless.
6 years ago my cousin, Payton, came to stay with us. At the time we didn 't think anything would be permanent. Now, six long years later, I couldn 't imagine what my life would be like without my brother. Sometimes, parents are unwilling, unable, or unfit to care for their children.
When children are taken from their homes at a young age and placed in a foster home they are already create a form of disconnection, yet when taking them from their siblings their familial connections are torn away ten times faster. Siblings provide leadership, care, and challenger in each other's lives, siblings are meant to guide one another and help their family in tough times. When one doesn't have their sister or brother to be their guide, the child may not join the right crowd. Then the serious issue of full disconnection from all relationships. When one is separated from so many things all at once, it is very rare for that child to form a bond, with the adults or the other foster children.
According to a Child Protective Investigation, there are approximately half a million children in the U.S. foster care system, otherwise known as congregate care (group homes and institutions). Children are placed in congregate care when they are found to be in an unsafe environment. Usually children of abuse or maltreatment are placed first (Font, 2015). Out-of-home-care causes increased problems of attachment, behavioral, and psychological disorders in the developing child. Child safety is the primary goal of out-of-home-care; however, maltreatment investigations are still reported in those institutions.