Resilience is being able to bounce back in the face of adversity as if it never happened. People can become resilient if they have lived in a stressful or neglected family. Jeannette Walls comes from a family that the parents were enthusiastic about holding down a regular job; where the kids would go hungry for weeks on end. Jeannette, at a young age, develops resilience by helping others, being her own recruiter, and by standing up for herself.
The first way that Jeannette builds resilience is by helping others, Jeannette gives up the opportunity to leave Welch by being able to go to Iowa to take care of Mr.s Sanders’ two kids. She tells Mrs. Sanders’ “take Lori instead of me and at the end of the summer, but her a bus ticket to New York City” (230). Jeannette puts her sister, Lori, happiness before her own. She does a selfless act because she wants Lori to be far away from Welch and start a whole new life. In the article What is the Emotional Intelligence, Gerald Gabriel says that “they have empathy for the feelings of others” (2) and that is was Jeannette did. She wanted Lori to start a whole new life somewhere else rather than staying behind and make a “life” for herself in Welch.
Another way Jeannette became resilient was by being her own recruiter by wanting someone to help when they need it. In the article The Importance of Resilience, Christine Gorman says how “they make you want to help them and have a good enough judge of character that they know whom to tap to get the help they need” (3). Jeannette got picked on a lot when her and her family moved to Welch. Ernie was the biggest bully of them all; he would always throw rocks at her and tell Jeannette how her and her family were all garbage. Brian and she were just reading on the sofa bed when Ernie comes with his gang and begin to yell “Garbage! Garbage! Y’all are a bunch of garbage!” (165). Ernie threw a rock at Brian’s head that it started to...