One of my favorite Christmas gifts this year was a copy of Jeannette Walls’ amazing memoir, The Glass Castle. In it, she describes growing up with her three siblings in a household characterized by chaos and poverty on the one hand, and love and a sense of wonderment on the other.

Jeannette and her siblings live in a series of cars, tents, or leaky-roofed houses without heat. They forage for food in farmers’ fields and trash cans, wear cast-off clothing, and bathe so infrequently as to attract the scorn of schoolmates. Their unstructured life and economic deprivation are partly a product of their father Rex’s alcoholism, and partly a result of their mother’s free-spiritedness, which often bordered on mental illness. The parents held jobs for periods of time, but usually quit or were fired because they did not like the infringement of a work schedule on their freedom or did not see eye-to-eye with their bosses on some point. Despite these physical hardships, the Walls family is full of love and mutual affection, and Jeannette’s account of her family is surprisingly gentle and forgiving.

As a Family Law teacher who addresses issues such as child maltreatment, parental rights and child protection, I am fascinated by first person accounts of family life, and Walls’ account is full of nuance and insight. There is one scene however, that haunts me as a teacher.