In the memoir The Glass Castle written by Jeanette Walls, portrays her dysfunctional family and her difficulties growing up. Jeanette is faced with numerous barriers throughout her life. Despite the many obstacles set forth by her parents during her childhood, Jeanette develops into a successful adult later in life. One of these obstacles is that Jeanette must cope with the carelessness of her mother, Rose Mary, while also dealing with the destructive nature of her father, Rex. Jeanette Walls uses plot, characterizations, and conflicts to convey that parent’s selfishness can be detrimental to their children. As a child Jeanette’s family is constantly moving from place to place and struggling to make enough money for foods. Jeanette’s father, Rex, makes it quite difficult to live as a well-financed family because of the money he spent on alcohol. Jeanette uses characterization to demonstrate that the selfishness of her father spending all the money for him rather than for the family. When Jeanette and her siblings are sitting around in their house with no food and no money to buy food one of her sibling said, ““dad needs to start carrying his weight.” Lori said as she started into the empty refrigerator. “He spends more money than he earns on booze” Brian said.”(78) Rex Walls could not provide for his family because what salary he earn, he goes out and spends it all on alcohol, leaving Jeanette and her siblings scavenging for food. Rex’s alcoholism had cause so much chaos in the family that one night Rex had a fight with Rose that it had gone out of control that the neighbors was about to step in to break them up. Jeanette describes that night as, "Moms and dads got into arguments all the time in Battle Mountain, so it didn't seem that big a deal, but this fight was raucous even by local standards, and some people thought they should step in and break it