The glass castle by Jeannette Walls is a story of a dysfunctional family which does not conform to the norm of society. And through this their children suffer due to their unconventional methods “Mom and Dad liked to make a big point about never surrendering to fear or to prejudice or to the narrow-minded conformist sticks-in-the-mud who tried to tell everyone else what was proper" Jeannetee's parents always thought the "normal" was an unacceptable way to live. They stressed this idea and it applies to their lives throughout the entire book. The adult used this idea as an excuse for whenever they did not have a home or food to eat. But it is through this that we can the maturity and desire the children show to rise above from their problems.
She understands that people come from different environments and everyone can learn; they just need to be motivated. Mary once blamed the poor academic skills the students have today on things like drugs and divorce for poor motivation and concentration. She describes starting the day with concentration principles buy the way she walks into her class. If her style of teaching doesn’t work then she will fail the student. Mary’s son a High School senior was in the jeopardy of flunking English.
A lot of parents in this modern decade are failing to responsibly teach their children good manner. In a newsletter called club news, outraged coach Sam argues with a frustrated and critical tone about toxic parents poisoning the club by not educating their children on basic sportsmanship. Sam establishes he’s audience by using hard evidence, He involves the audience in an emotionally and repetitive way by using 8 year old Emily as an example ‘She didn’t care that her team had lost. She didn’t care about her own performance. She didn’t care about the sledging by the other team.
Secondly, Kath has a selfish characteristic where she tends to change things so that things seem more suitable for her. Kath thought she was the queen of the school and acted very selfish. Kath’s selfishness is shown towards her interaction with her brother. Kath has a twin brother, Kevin, whom she never hangs out with and did not want to be seen with. In school, there was a girl named Christine who Kath made fun of just once, specifically about her ears.
In which, sometimes, she would go two or three days without eating or would feel too fat after going a day with only one apple, worried family members and friends. Gabby, after an eye-opening experience with her father, discovered she hated herself and because of that she had become anorexic. This story takes a micro-level orientation tact of the Symbolic-Interaction Paradigm because it shows that the cause of the young Gabby's anorexia was her need to please the crowd because of her interaction with the society within her school. John J. Macionis' book entitled "Sociology" (the sixth edition) states that society is constructed "Through the human process of finding meaning in our surroundings, we define our identities, rights, and obligations toward others." Gabby felt that she needed to
Her mother “Rit” then denied any more separation of her family, which set a strong example for Harriet. This was a courageous act by her mother against her master, but affected Harriet whom would apply it in a couple decades to the freedom of hundreds of slaves. Sadly many more hardships were soon to come as Harriet (“Arminta”) grew into a young lady. Abuse in the 1840’s was not an unusual occurrence, but the violence that was inflicted on her caused permanent damage to her health. The most serious injury was when she was sent to town to pick up dinner for the Masters’ family, as she was passing through she happened to encounter a runaway slave.
Fitting In In many families, growing up means making mistakes, learning from them, and moving on. Olivia Castellano in, “Canto, Locura Y Poesia,” makes it clear that being able to make mistakes and learn from them can be very difficult especially for Chicanos to be able to succeed in life when they are already looked down at for their culture. Sometimes you wonder if a degree would change anything. If having and education would make every stereotype of chicanos go away. Catellanos argues that her culture has been looked down on for a long time even by her own family and how she “needed to sabotage society in a major way, intellectually radical way” (342).
Donny’s mother lacked self- confidence and cared more about what other people thought about her as a parent. The conflict between mother and her son is ironic. Unfortunately, Cal, Donny’s tutor, failed to support and motivate Donny to do his homework. Cal represents an immature, Peter Pan like kid himself. Tyler even described them in the same manner: long hair, faded jeans, fans of rock music, careless, and young.
Having worries, her parents take her to a therapist. But he is soon fired when he proposes that she should be put on medication. Her mom notices Phoebe’s self-destructive behavior at home, and her constantly getting into trouble at school, but she refuses to accept that there’s anything wrong with her daughter. Other than the trouble with Phoebe, her parents are also dealing with their own relationship problems. Her young sister feels jealous and left out when she watches Phoebe get all the attention from both parents.
This desire to stay herself drives the girl through her life. She 'fails' her mother lots of times, every time 'asserting her will, her right to fall short of expectations'. The girl "didn't get straight As", "didn't become class president", "didn't get into Stanford", "dropped out of college" because she does not think she can be what she wants to, but she could only be herself. Therefore, the causes (Jing-mei's mother's refusal to recognize her daughter's natural abilities and pressing the child into changing her nature) brought the result of Jing-mei's denial of all the things her mother wanted her to achieve in life and her deliberate failures in many fields. However, the girl manages to win her right to stay the way she wants.