The question:
"This is to be posted on your
blog no later than Sunday night at 10:00 p.m. Write at least 2-3 paragraphs,
and no less than 250 words.
Blog Entry: Read Epstein’s
list on page 49 in his article, “What Makes a Good Parent?”, and identify how
each parent from The Glass Castle individually
rates on this list. Pick at least two of their strongest
points and at least two of their weakest points and explain why you assessed
them the way you did. Be specific and defend your assessments and don’t forget
to assess the parents individually because they were two different parents with
their own methods of parenting. "
Ma re'ponse: (oooo french. I'm so fancy and suave.)
Every mother and father has
thought of the question, “What Makes a Good Parent?” This article by Robert
Epstein lists ten competencies that good parents have. Starting the list off is
Love and Affection, followed by Stress management, Relationship Skills,
Autonomy and independence, Education and learning, Life skills, Behavior
management, Health, Religion, and Safety, all in the order of most important to
least important. Many parents can agree with this list but the order of
importance is very debatable. My parents would clump all of these skills
together into numbers one and two. However, there are rare cases where about
half the list would be thrown out the car window.
In
“The Glass Castle”, the author’s mother and father have two very distinct
parenting methods, both of which did not follow most of Epstein’s ten
competencies. Jeanette Walls describes the negative and positive effects of
being raised through extreme poverty, and harsh parenting throughout her
memoir. Rex Walls, being the head of the “household”, would have listed his top
parenting efficacies in an order that would look like this: Education and
learning, Love and affection, Autonomy and independence, Behavior management,
and lastly, Relationship skills. Everything else would be disregarded because
Rex Walls believed that health and safety was the something that would inhibit
a child from toughening up and learning. He was also did not care about
religion at all. Jeanette’s father was the cause of stress in the family due to
his addiction with alcohol, which leaves Stress management out of his list.
Finally, Rex Walls did not have much life skills since it is defined as
“[Providing] for your child, [having] a steady income and [planning] for the
future.” But Jeanette’s dad really did have a large variety of practical
charismatic skills, which he taught to most of the Walls children.
Jeanette’s
mother had a more “do it yourself” parenting style. She mostly ignored many of
her motherly duties that society expects of her. Rose Mary just didn’t have an
aptitude for being a mother. She was not very behaviorally managed and she did
not care much for safety and health, much like her husband. She did have lots
of love and affection for her children however, even if she didn’t show it.
Rose Mary did teach the Walls children Autonomy and independence skills because
she neglected them and she showed them how to manage stress through optimism
and putting many situations into a different perspective.
I wish everyone a good night,
-Ares
I agree with just about everything, except relationship skills being apart of Rex Walls list of competencies. Aside from that, you hit the ball right out of the ball park.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Abel, however, I disagree that Rex Walls had the ability of maintaining a healthy relationship with anyone. Everyone in the Walls family disliked what he put them through, the only person who would defend him was Jeannette, and even she lost hope in her father after a while.
ReplyDeleteThank you for agreeing. I probably should have looked over what I was writing. I was just got lost while i was looking at the list. Thank you for pointing that out.
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