I appreciate the clear growth of the Walls kids, and the slow but obvious decline of their parents. It’s interesting seeing that as the kids grow older, they start to doubt their parents. We start seeing how childish and irresponsible their mother is. When the kids are struggling to feed themselves, they discover that their mom was spending precious shopping money on chocolate that she’s been eating by herself. They learn more about how moody their mother is, and how her irresponsibility leads her to having issues in her job. The book even mentions that when their mom left on vacation to renew her teaching license; she enjoyed her free time there so much she decided to quit her job, so it made her trip essentially worthless. The dad is almost never home, and instead, he stays in bars for the entire day. The book makes a point about Jeannette having to find and drag her dad out of bars whenever she needs him for something. We get a deeper look at why Rex Walls left this place too; seeing as how awful his mom treats the Walls kids. After a “specific incident” between Brian and Rex’s mom; the kids get a possible, yet horrifying idea as to why their dad tried his hardest to leave this place.