Jeannette Wall: An Escape From A Dysfunctional Family

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An Escape From a dysfunctional Family Throughout her life, Jeannette Wall’s family has been anything but normal. Through her journey of self discovery she learns how to be independent from her parents and live a happy life. When Jeannette was young, she did not realize how chaotic her family life and living conditions were. As Jeannette grows up, she realizes her family has problems and tries to fix them herself to improve her family's life. As she becomes an adult, Jeannette takes matters into her own hands and separates herself from her parents. Throughout Jeannette’s voyage of self-discovery, her view of her family changes drastically through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood which leads to becoming independent from family. At a young …show more content…

She and her siblings have little jobs they do to gain more money, but it doesn't add up to much. “But at least we had money. While I’d been bringing in a little extra cash babysitting, Brian was cutting other people’s weeds, and Lori had a paper route, it did not add up to much” (196). Jeannette got her first actual job at a jewelry store. The money she got there was real cash that could be saved up. “Mr. Becker hired me on the spot for forty dollars a week in cash. I was thrilled. It was my first real job. Babysitting and tutoring and doing other kid’s homework and mowing the lawn and redeeming bottles and selling scrap metal did not count. Forty dollars a week was serious money” (215). Jeannette and her older sister, Lori, decide to go to New York together once they are old enough and escape their parents. “Lori would leave by herself for New York in June , after she graduated. She’d settle in, find a place for us, and I’d follow her as soon as I could” (223). Jeannette finally takes matters into her own hands and leaves her parents to go live where she can make her own money and own decisions about how to live her

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