Self Sufficiency In Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle

Who is Jeannette Walls? She’s the author of The Glass Castle, a 2005 memoir about growing up with her family most especially with her parents who could be described as nomads and deadbeats. Notwithstanding the difficult upbringing, her siblings and she had, Jeannette perseveres and becomes a successful Journalist living in New York City. She explains how happy, but conflicted because her parents refuse money from her and live as homeless people. She writes the memoir to work through her feelings and share’s her story.

So far so good, in the pages I’ve read, there are so many messages conveyed in the memoir, but the main idea that interests me the most is the message of Self sufficiency. Self sufficiency is the ability to be able to supply one’s own or its needs without external assistance. In the first few chapters of the book, there is a prime example of Jeannette’s self sufficiency when she burns her self when cooking hot dogs at the age of three. How possibly could a three-year-old girl cook hot dogs for herself. Not only did she cook hot dog’s, although conversely,

Jeannette’s mother believed that if the pets became reliant on humans, they would not be able to survive out in the wild. She also applied the theory to children in general; “Mom always said people worried too much about their children. Suffering when you're young is good for you, she said. It immunized your body and your soul, and that was why she ignored us kids when we cried. Fussing over children who cry only encouraged them, she told us. That’s positive reinforcement for negative behavior”. “You didn't need a college degree to become one of the people who knew what was really going on. If you paid attention, you could pick things up on your own”. This quote foreshadows the summary of the lessons that Jeannette and her siblings throughout their childhood and consequently, this made Jeannette who she is