“All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine
glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack,
a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.” ― Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Questions:
Do parents damage their children?
Argument:Parents do damage their children physically while it is the mental part that suffer the most.
Introduction:
Mitch Albom once said in his book The Five People You Meet in Heaven that “All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.” Here, Albom highlights the damage from parents, or the improper treatment to children in their childhood. In our world, most of us get care and love from our parents. They protect us from damage outside the world. Why will they do damage to us? How do parents damage children? What is damage? How will these damage influence children? In her book The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls describes damage from her parents. The self-centeredness from Jeannette’s parents makes feel lack of care and love, which arouses her revenge,and destroys her hope, and leaves her unsafe.
Despite meeting the children's food need is parents’ basic responsibility, Jeannette’s parents’s self-centered which only satisfies their own needs brings frequent hunger to Jeannette and her siblings in their childhood and makes them feel lack of love.Jeannette’s parents chose to live a rove life instead of having a job with stable income, which causes economic difficulties in this family. As a consequence, Jeannette and her siblings often have to face hunger, let alone getting gifts from their parents. “Lying on the mattress next to Mom was one of those huge family-sized Hershey chocolate bars, the shiny silver wrapper pulled back and torn away. She'd already eaten half of it. “(Walls 109 ebook) The word “huge” reveals that Mom spends a lot of money buying chocolate bars. “She’d already eaten half of it.” reflects that she loves it very much and can’t help eating them a lot. In such situation that children don’t have enough money for food, I think most parents will save money.At least they will share with their children when they buy food. However, Jeannette’s Mom should have chocolate bars secretly instead of sharing food with her children, which shows her self-centered and selfish. She uses the only money to satisfied her own need while leaving them hungry. Children may feel sad and think that Mom regard chocolate more important than them. They will the view that Mom does not love them so much and they are lack of love, which is the damage that Mom’s behavior aggravates to children.
This self-centeredness from Jeannette’s parents hurts her mentally and makes her feel lack of care and love, which arouses her revenge in her later life. When she was 3 years old, she had to cook by herself. “"Mom says I'm mature for my age," I told them. "and she lets me cook for myself a lot."” Because of this, she got burn. Mom uses “mature” as an excuse to let her do cook a lot. When she was in the hospital, nurses took care of her well while her parents seemed indifferent to her, This makes her feel lack of love, which contributes to her revenge later. She wrote “I was torturing the fire, giving it life, and snuffing it out. Then I got a better idea. I made a pile of toilet paper in the toilet, lit it, and when it started burning, the flame shooting silently up out of the bowl, I flushed it down the toilet”(Walls 20 ebook). When Jeannette used the words “torturing”,”snuff” to describe a vivid scene,she was actually obsessed in fire.We could see from her description that she treated fire just like tortured a baby,which was hard for us to imagine at her age. “made a pile of toilet paper in the toilet, lit it, and when it started burning, the flame shooting silently up out of the bowl, flushed it down the toilet.”Those puzzling behavior also reflected her hate to fire.Why did she hate fire? Because of the ignorance and indifference from her parents when she got fire at even younger age, which makes she become scared of fire and hate it. The behavior of burning toilet paper and torturing it was her revenge not only to fire,but also to that experience of lacking care and love.
Do parents damage their children?
Argument:Parents do damage their children physically while it is the mental part that suffer the most.
Introduction:
Mitch Albom once said in his book The Five People You Meet in Heaven that “All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.” Here, Albom highlights the damage from parents, or the improper treatment to children in their childhood. In our world, most of us get care and love from our parents. They protect us from damage outside the world. Why will they do damage to us? How do parents damage children? What is damage? How will these damage influence children? In her book The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls describes damage from her parents. The self-centeredness from Jeannette’s parents makes feel lack of care and love, which arouses her revenge,and destroys her hope, and leaves her unsafe.
Despite meeting the children's food need is parents’ basic responsibility, Jeannette’s parents’s self-centered which only satisfies their own needs brings frequent hunger to Jeannette and her siblings in their childhood and makes them feel lack of love.Jeannette’s parents chose to live a rove life instead of having a job with stable income, which causes economic difficulties in this family. As a consequence, Jeannette and her siblings often have to face hunger, let alone getting gifts from their parents. “Lying on the mattress next to Mom was one of those huge family-sized Hershey chocolate bars, the shiny silver wrapper pulled back and torn away. She'd already eaten half of it. “(Walls 109 ebook) The word “huge” reveals that Mom spends a lot of money buying chocolate bars. “She’d already eaten half of it.” reflects that she loves it very much and can’t help eating them a lot. In such situation that children don’t have enough money for food, I think most parents will save money.At least they will share with their children when they buy food. However, Jeannette’s Mom should have chocolate bars secretly instead of sharing food with her children, which shows her self-centered and selfish. She uses the only money to satisfied her own need while leaving them hungry. Children may feel sad and think that Mom regard chocolate more important than them. They will the view that Mom does not love them so much and they are lack of love, which is the damage that Mom’s behavior aggravates to children.
This self-centeredness from Jeannette’s parents hurts her mentally and makes her feel lack of care and love, which arouses her revenge in her later life. When she was 3 years old, she had to cook by herself. “"Mom says I'm mature for my age," I told them. "and she lets me cook for myself a lot."” Because of this, she got burn. Mom uses “mature” as an excuse to let her do cook a lot. When she was in the hospital, nurses took care of her well while her parents seemed indifferent to her, This makes her feel lack of love, which contributes to her revenge later. She wrote “I was torturing the fire, giving it life, and snuffing it out. Then I got a better idea. I made a pile of toilet paper in the toilet, lit it, and when it started burning, the flame shooting silently up out of the bowl, I flushed it down the toilet”(Walls 20 ebook). When Jeannette used the words “torturing”,”snuff” to describe a vivid scene,she was actually obsessed in fire.We could see from her description that she treated fire just like tortured a baby,which was hard for us to imagine at her age. “made a pile of toilet paper in the toilet, lit it, and when it started burning, the flame shooting silently up out of the bowl, flushed it down the toilet.”Those puzzling behavior also reflected her hate to fire.Why did she hate fire? Because of the ignorance and indifference from her parents when she got fire at even younger age, which makes she become scared of fire and hate it. The behavior of burning toilet paper and torturing it was her revenge not only to fire,but also to that experience of lacking care and love.
In addition to selfcenteredness, indifferent treatment from parents often
makes children feel hopeless. “When I recovered, Dad picked me up and
heaved me back into the middle of the Hot Pot. "Sink or swim!" he called out.
For the second time, I sank. The water once more filled my nose and lungs. I
kicked and flailed and thrashed my way to the surface, gasping for air, and
reached out to Dad. But he pulled back, and I didn't feel his hands around me
until I'd sunk one more time. “(Walls 45 ebook) We can see from “sink or
swim” that Dad’s way teaching Jeannette swimming is quite rude and lack of
care. The verbs “kicked”, “flailed”, “thrashed”, ”gasping” also reveal
Jeannette’s suffering and pain at that time. We can imagine her hopelessness
and helplessness when she sank. She is trying to live on but Dad haven’t
reached out his hand for a long time,which may confuse her why Dad don’t
save me at once? What about she were drowned at that time? I think it will
cause a sense of insecurity in her future. What’s more, see from "Aw, come
on," he said and shouted at Dad, "I'm going to take your girl upstairs." (Walls
134 ebook) Dad asks such a little girl to be a hostesses just for money. And
when Robbie wants to take Jeannette upstairs, Dad’s reaction is so calm.And
he agrees to let his daughter alone to accompany a man, which may be
dangerous for her. From my perspective, it is too early for Jeannette to face
those things. It will cause damage to her innocence and destroy her
imagination about men and love.
What’s more, indifferent treatment from Grandma damage Brian’s value about family relationship and leaves him a sense of insecurity. ”They'd been gone for a minute or two when I heard Brian weakly protesting. I went into Grandpa's bedroom and saw Erma kneeling on the floor in front of Brian, grabbing at the crotch of his pants, squeezing and kneading while mumbling to herself and telling Brian to hold still, goddammit. Brian, his cheeks wet with tears, was holding his hands protectively between his legs.” (Walls 92 ebook) It is too hard for us to imagine a grandma should act indecently to her grandson. We could see hopeless from the phrase “weakly protesting” that Brian tries to get rid of his grandma’s behavior but in vain. ”grabbing at the crotch of his pants”, “squeezing and kneading” reveals the weird and awful behaviors that grandma does. “his cheek wet with tears” reflects his suffering and painful(not only physically but also mentally). The word “protectively” accurately reveals that he needs to be protected, which are all caused by his grandma’s obscence. It hurts more mentally than physically and makes Brian a person lack of a sense of security.
What’s more, indifferent treatment from Grandma damage Brian’s value about family relationship and leaves him a sense of insecurity. ”They'd been gone for a minute or two when I heard Brian weakly protesting. I went into Grandpa's bedroom and saw Erma kneeling on the floor in front of Brian, grabbing at the crotch of his pants, squeezing and kneading while mumbling to herself and telling Brian to hold still, goddammit. Brian, his cheeks wet with tears, was holding his hands protectively between his legs.” (Walls 92 ebook) It is too hard for us to imagine a grandma should act indecently to her grandson. We could see hopeless from the phrase “weakly protesting” that Brian tries to get rid of his grandma’s behavior but in vain. ”grabbing at the crotch of his pants”, “squeezing and kneading” reveals the weird and awful behaviors that grandma does. “his cheek wet with tears” reflects his suffering and painful(not only physically but also mentally). The word “protectively” accurately reveals that he needs to be protected, which are all caused by his grandma’s obscence. It hurts more mentally than physically and makes Brian a person lack of a sense of security.
This essay attempts to analyze what is damage and how do Jeanneat’s
parents damage children. I also do analysis anbout the influence that
damage brings to children supported with a number of evidence from the
memoir of The Glass Castle. “All parents damage their children.” We can see
this damage is not only on the body, more importantly making them feel lack
of care and love, arousing their revenge ,and destroying their hope, and
leaving her unsafe. In our real life, parents should focus more on children’s
education. Whether parents’ giving children too much or too little is not
appropriate. Too much may make them easy to be satisfied and don’t know to
cherish, while too little will cause them longing for something eagerly so as to
do evil. Family education is an art, which requires love and patience to water
leading the flower to bloom.
References:
Albom, Mitch. The Five People You Meet In Heaven. 1st ed. New York: Hyperion, 2003.
Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle. 1st ed. New York: Scribner, 2005.
References:
Albom, Mitch. The Five People You Meet In Heaven. 1st ed. New York: Hyperion, 2003.
Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle. 1st ed. New York: Scribner, 2005.
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