Yes, Lara, exactly what I mean! You put it so well: that all you do is “present a biased, yet polite opinion”, i.e. judgments. I, in contrast, am presenting an analysis of the information, experiences, texts, societies, and cultures. Maybe it is not your intention to say that my opinion is bad and yours is good, but this flows from your line of reasoning, which remains confined solely to the realm of opinions and you do not engage critically with the information itself. You do not make a socio-economic analysis of the context in which families live and the possibilities that these contexts provide and deny.

It’s not a judgment on my part, simply an analysis of your statements, which as you yourself admit simply express biased opinions and judgmental views; for instance: “The parents had plenty of opportunities to improve their family’s well being and life style and decided not to. That is not falling victim to socio-economic oppression, that is pure laziness.”

“[P]ure laziness” and blame is both judgmental and brooding. But, understanding how socio-economic and political contexts work and the diseases they cause (among them alcoholism and other forms of addiction) helps us heal ourselves and the world.

You also contradict yourself with each new sentence. First, you deny the accuracy of my observation that you understand abuse as lack of money: “at no point did i say that i associated lack of money with neglect and abuse”.

But then immediately after the next sentence you state: “The Walls parents, in my opinion, could have saved the money they made and had a secure lifestyle for their children”. Basically, in your biased opinion, saving money is important for “a secure lifestyle” and an indicator of “well-being”, as you later state. Again, you fail to problematise the very concept of money.

Interesting that you should start talking about rudeness, when you barge in here with your biased opinions about the Walls parents and me. It is rude of you to come and tell me that in your opinion, I cannot draw the conclusions that my analysis of the Glass Castle yields, because, even if you do not know me AT ALL, in your opinion I am not an “expert” on poverty and abuse. I have never announced an open contest for people to compete on who feels herself to be the poorest, most abused, greatest victim. And, I do not care about your opinions. When I invite people here to discuss, I am looking for an intellectually stimulating debate based on an analysis of the information and a critical approach to understanding our larger and deeper contexts with the aim that such a discussion can help us all to work for a better world.

And lastly, at no point did i say that i associated lack of money with neglect and abuse. I was pointing out that i associate the abuse and neglect with my parent not even trying to help our family. The Walls parents, in my opinion, could have saved the money they made and had a secure lifestyle for their children, instead of drinking it away. At one point, the mother attempts to make this happen. I simply state that if the parents were truly interested in looking after their children properly, they would have made a greater effort to deny themselves certain pleasures (alcohol and prostitutes for instance) and taken care of their children first.

Also, while I am sure that there are victims of systemic neglect and civilised socio-economic oppression, and I never said that there were not, I do not believe that this family was victim to it themselves. The parents had plenty of opportunities to improve their family’s well being and life style and decided not to. That is not falling victim to socio-economic oppression, that is pure laziness.

And my final piece of advice is that you should not be so very….. rude (not the word I would like, but the best one I can think of) in your responses. You have expressed your opinion by writing this discussion, and by inviting others to respond, are inviting them to share their own opinions. Just because you do not agree with them, does not mean that you have to try to point out every single flaw, not only in their opinion, but in who they are as a person based on their comment. That is being judgmental yourself, if i may be so bold as to say so…

And before I go, I just want to say that your arguments are good in your original discussion and that I agree with many of them, just not when concerning this book and the family within.

Hello Lara,
Thank you for sharing your experiences. It is not clear however how you believe your experience reflects the Wall family trajectory through life except for your focus on money? Since I do not know the details of your life, I cannot say anything about you or your parents. But from what you have written it appears that you blame your father for not having money, not working, and verbal abuse and you extend this to the whole society: if people do not have money, they have abusive, neglectful, and irresponsible parents. Of course, you are welcome to believe that about yourself and your society and think that since about 75% of families go through some sort of abuse (imprisonment, poverty, mental illness, suicide, death from malnourishment or other civilised diseases, etc.) then it must be because they are abusive, neglectful, and irresponsible. Or you can crawl out of your judgmental opinions and look at the problem first sociologically and then anthropologically.

Also, your attempt to discredit me by making assumptions that you cannot verify about my “expertise” in the field of poverty and abuse still does not address the problem of the sheer numbers of the victims of systemic neglect and civilised socio-economic oppression. If you can’t verify my biography, you can at least bother to verify the research on which I base my analysis. The bibliography is all there in my talks and essays. Don’t be lazy, first do your homework, then make your statements. Otherwise, it’s all empty bubbles and blabber on the level of “your opinion is bad, my opinion is good”.

Finally, it is astute of you to observe that “if everyone told you to jump in front of a train and die, would you? Probably not.” Definitely, I refuse to. But civilised society was told to jump into the abyss of destruction of all life, and you are doing this willingly, using your victimhood to justify yourself. It is not I who belittles people like you. You belittle yourselves by brooding about your victimhood and not doing anything about extending the hand in solidarity with the rest of the victimised and abused world, when you should be doing everything to understand the mechanism of oppression – which is civilisation – and stopping it.

Both my elder sister and I have been greatly affected by this mistreatment, as has my mother. For over two years, my mother and I fell into a deep depression due to our feelings of abandonment and neglect. My father decided he did not need to get a job and look after his family when we moved, leaving all our income to my mother. She works 6 days a week, over 12 hours in two different cities separated by a mountain range… now tell me, is that morally correct? For the father of a family to be so self-righteous that he believes that he can neglect his family and verbally and mentally abuse them?

When my elder sister was 16 she seriously considered committing suicide because of the constant mental and verbal abuse she received from our father. The only reason she is still living today is because my mother found her diary and quickly sent her away to a boarding school on the other side of the country.

I myself have been made deeply suspicious of the male gender. I find it extremely difficult to trust any man farther than I could throw them.

I have recently read this memoir, and while it contains excellent writing, I found it disturbing on a deeper level. I agree quite strongly with all of Jay’s sentiments and I feel that you were quite incorrect in your reprimand. Firstly, while he may have been somewhat radical in his response, he was simply presenting his viewpoint, as you did by writing this article. Secondly, I believe that your arguments about capitalism and the parents not being responsible for how they raided their children were very silly to say the least.

It is not our surroundings that make our decisions for us, but ourselves. Tell me, if everyone told you to jump in front of a train and die, would you? Probably not. That would be your choice. Everyone has free will and the ability to make an educated decision. The fact that Jeannette’s parents chose to live the way they did and neglect their children is simply a sad fact of life. A capitalist economy did not force them to treat their family the way they did, just as a capitalist economy can not make you kill yourself. That is a choice.

“Huskerfan, it is fascinating that you believe yourself to be in a position to decide for the Walls family”

May I point out that the fact that you wrote this to Huskerfan amuses me greatly. You yourself say that you find it fascinating that someone believes themselves to be in a position to decide for the Walls family when you yourself have presented your thoughts and ideas for what made them the way they were. Please, before you criticize another persons views, make sure that you are not becoming hypercritical.

Finally, we all have different experiences in our life that mold who we become as people in the end. These experiences introduce the ability to ‘gain’ new qualities within ourselves. The acquisition of such qualities cannot be taught by parents, even neglectful ones, nor can it be taught by a way of life or society. We learn these qualities by our reactions to what happens to us and how we move on through difficult situations.

From your writing, it is evident that you have not personally experienced parental neglect or abuse in any form. Before telling others who have experienced such hardships, consider that you may not know more about it than they, as they are the ones who have experienced said hardships, and not you.

I do accept your opinion, as I hope you will mine. Please do continue giving your views as there is no problem with that, but do not belittle others suffering and experiences as not important or relevant, as to those to which they apply, they are extremely relevant.

Sincerely,
Lara

Alec, my comment to DeVries applies to your comments as well. I would add that there are other ways of living in the world than the three civilised political, socio-economic paradigms that you propose. As for “hunter-gathering” life-style, I would take out the hunter part. I discuss these issues in my anthropological section in-depth, so, I would urge you to read my work first before putting words in my mouth.

DeVries, I have researched and written extensively on the interconnectedness of personal choices and oppressions/domestication/civilisation. So, if you are interested in reading more on my “thought processes”, as you say, you are welcome to read my work on anthropology, literature, and culture. Or listen to my talks on education and civilisation. This will prove to be more constructive, since you are attributing links, meanings, and conclusions to my arguments that I do not make.

“Huskerfan, it is fascinating that you believe yourself to be in a position to decide for the Walls family, yet you fail to realise that the concept of laziness and work are capitalist concepts that are based on the unfair recompensation of labour in favour of the disproportionately high profit of the capitalist.”

Again, I bring up providing for basic needs – like another comment. If you say capitalism is wrong, let’s try socialism and communism. The parents wouldn’t have fared any better because they wouldn’t be willing to contribute any work. Let’s try a reversion to hunter-gatherer status. The parents had the chance to be hunter gatherers constantly, but they didn’t live off the land. In fact, they lacked initiative entirely. Rex could have scavenged or cut wood to fix the stairs and house. He could have used his survival skills to trap animals. He could have brought home edible plants. But he doesn’t – instead he drinks money away under the guise of business ventures.

I quote myself – “Even animals care for their young.”

Where is the disconnect? Even when you take all society away and strip man to his core instincts, not caring for the basic needs of one’s children is “lazy” or at the very least demonstrates a lack of care attributable to the individuals involved directly – not society.

Second – blaming the victim. In a roundabout way, you blame all sorts of things on victims. Using your rhetoric, we can say that society is a victim of itself. “It isn’t the human race’s fault that things are the way they are. We can’t do anything to create change. Our will is broken.” Will is a choice. Life is a choice. Everything is a choice.

Also – a quote from your conclusion.

“If the aim of education is to forge strong, compassionate citizens of the world, capable of successfully finding their place in it, then we can judge the Walls family as having accomplished that mission.”

Then why did the children choose to participate in American Consumerism and become slaves to the system as adults? Where does your ideal world logically fit in the progression of the novel? Based on the conclusions you had drawn, the children should have followed the path of their parents if their education was successful. When you use that phrase, it sounds like you are endorsing a return to the status quo instead of a divergence from it.

Elaborate on your logic, please. I am not trying to be offensive. I am just interested in reading more of your thought processes.

Alec, thank you for your post. I understand that these experiences are always multi-layered with various social and personal elements at play. However, you are missing the main points in my critique. I would suggest that you reread and listen again to my analysis as well as read my other essays on childhood and culture. Also, selling a ring does not solve the problem of hunger or the social structure of oppression. The rhetoric however is necessary in order to continue rationalising abuse by blaming the victim.