Glass Castle 5 . . .

. . . In the chapters that I read this week, I was reminded again of the Wall's parenting philosophy of "sink or swim " . . . literally. In this section, the Walls headed to the 'hot pot', a natural spring near their home in Battle Mountain. Because she had lived in the desert her whole life, Jeannette had never learned to swim and her father decided today was the day to try. So, he swam once across the pool sized spring, then threw his daughter out into the water yelling, " Sink or swim!" (walls 66). He did this multiple times, each time Jeanette would sink, and each time she reached for her father he would either pull away from her, or throw her back out into the water. Now, I don't know if its just me, but this sounds a little crazy. I can understand letting your kid fend for itself a little, but it seems to me that the Walls uphold self-sufficiency so much that they're willing to flirt with death, on their children's behalf, to give it to them. This has happened several times in the book. First, when Jeannette's mother allowed her to cook hot dogs by herself at the age of four and her dress caught on fire, severely burning her. Next, when some kids were bothering her at school, her father encouraged Jeannette to fight them, resulting in her and her brother being beat up several times. Finally, Jeannette almost drowns just to learn how to swim. On each occasion, had things not gone the way they did, Jeannette's life could have gone horreably wrong. Plus the multiple other occasions when the Walls were not seeking to teach their kids a lesson, but simply living their rogue lives in which they endangered their kids (when Jeanette falls out of the car while her father is driving from the police, or when the kids almost fall out of the back of the U haul ). I just don't know if that level of self-sufficiency is worth such a steep price, or even necessary in normal life.