“If you want to be treated like a mother, then you should act like one. (…) Then why doesn’t she act like one? (…) And why don’t you act like a dad? (…) you apologize for that comment! Or what?” (Walls, 220) 

This passage is one of my favourite passages in the entire memoir, as this passage demonstrates character growth and courage from Jeannette. This passage is taken from a conversation between Jeannette and her two parents, as she calls out her parents on their lazy habits. This is one of the first times in Jeannette’s life where she is able to muster up the courage to stand up to her lazy and careless parents, who have constantly ignored Jeannette and her siblings all throughout their life. This moment in the novel is significant as it showcases an obvious role reversal as Jeannette is entering high school. At this point in Jeannette’s life, she is starting to mature and is ironically starting to take the role of a mother to her younger siblings. Prior to this confrontation Jeannette would always sit back and keep quiet while her parents would make poor decision after poor decision, but here we see a sense of character growth in Jeannette as she is starting to truly understand the level of negligence that her parents depict. She finally put her foot down, challenged her parents to be better, and has said that enough is enough. Additionally, Jeannette also demonstrates a great deal of courage in this passage as she stands up to her father when he demands that she apologize for her comments. Rex even went on to push her against the wall, grab his belt, and threatened to “whip her butt” if she did not oblige. Even after all of this, she stood her ground and refused to apologize not once but twice, which is something that takes a great deal of courage. In conclusion, it’s evident that in this passage Jeannette demonstrates a tremendous amount of courage and most importantly, matures as she stands up and challenges her parents for the first time. 

“Drugs come from somewhere, and they’re destroying our community,” he says. “You got folks like Brenda, who think they need them to survive, and then you got the Khalil's, who think they need to sell them to survive. The Brenda's can’t get jobs unless they’re clean, and they can’t pay for rehab unless they got jobs. When the Khalil's get arrested for selling drugs, they either spend most of their life in prison, another billion-dollar industry, or they have a hard time getting a real job and probably start selling drugs again. That’s the hate they’re giving us, baby, a system designed against us. That’s Thug Life.” (Thomas, 170)

This passage perfectly depicts the endless cycle of drugs in their community as Maverick explains to Star how drugs are almost inescapable. At the end of the day the Brenda’s are always going to fall back into their drug addictions, and the Khali’s are always going to fall back to selling drugs to make money if the system doesn’t change. Overall, it is clear that drugs pose a serious issue to both the Garden Heights community and the Wall’s family, as they continually create an endless cycle that hurts the drug users, sellers, and the people that they are surrounded by.

“They’d stick their heads into the classroom and see the students playing tag and throwing erasers while mom was up front, spinning like a top and letting pieces of chalk fly from her hands to demonstrate centrifugal force. (….)  But mom was always getting confused and filling in the wrong dates on the lesson plans or loosing the homework. Ms. Beatty threatened to fire mom so Lori, Brian, and I started helping mom with her school work” (Walls, 74). 

This passage was recited by Jeanette Walls as she is discussing how her mother is doing a poor job of being a teacher, as she refuses to discipline her students, can’t keep up with lesson plans, and is constantly losing homework. She goes on to explain how the principle has threatened to fire her mother and how her mother is holding onto her job by the skin of her teeth. The reason this passage is significant is because it demonstrates the themes of coming of age and neglectful parenting, as these two themes go hand in hand. Rosemary’s irresponsibly in regards to her performance at work, has led to her four kids having to do her work for her and essentially forcing them to mature quicker than other kids. Because Rosemary is being a dreadful parent, which is evident by her teaching abilities and lack of ability to provide for her kids, she is robbing them of their childhood. Typically, when kids are at Jeanette’s age they get to enjoy life and participate in fun actives, but instead Jeanette, Lori, and Brian are being forced to do adult activities at far too young of an age. They are being put in a precarious position where if they don’t do their mom’s work, they will have no source of income and will rarely have food on the table. They are essentially being put in a position where they have to take the role of a parent and provide for the family, which is something that no child should ever have to do. These two themes constantly reoccur throughout the novel, as Jeanette and her siblings are continuously being put in situations where they have to take the role of a parent, which is forcing them to step into the world of adulthood far too early. 

“But if the child-welfare man got it into his head that we were an unfit family, we'd have no way to drive him off. He'd launch an investigation and end up sending me and Brian and Lori and Maureen off to live with different families, even though we all got good grades and knew Morse code. I couldn’t let that happen. No way was I going to lose Brian and Lori and Maureen. (Wells, 194) 

This quote was recited by Jeannette after she responds to a man who works for child welfare, and flat out denies that her parents are negligent. This passage is a great example of the theme loyalty as Jeannette could have told the child welfare man the truth to escape her horrible parents, but instead chose to lie solely because she did not want to risk losing her siblings. Overall, it is clear that the two main themes in the memoir are neglectful parenting and loyalty between the Walls siblings which is a by product of the first theme.