He knows this would have been best for them but he puts his own selfish desires over what is in best interest for his children. "Someone has stolen all the money. I knew it was dad. I couldn't believe he'd stoop this low" (228). This selfish act almost hampered his daughters' search for a better life.
Although selfishness was a major contribution to the Walls parenting skills, their inability to provide stability could also been seen as a factor. The children never really had a home. They were constantly on the move from town to town and state to state. "How many places have we lived?" Jeanette asked her sister, Lori (29). "We counted eleven places we had lived, then we lost track" (29). Both of this quotes show the constant moving that lead to the children not being able to recall every place in which they called "home". Another way Rose Mary and Rex fail to provide stability to their children was both of them being unable to lock down a job. Rose Mary was able to get a job as a teacher which was great because she was finally able to sustain her children, however she did a lot of little things that could potentially lead to her being dismissed from that job. Rose Mary did things like pretending to be sick, not showing up to her assigned classroom, and just slacking off in general. It got so bad that her children began to help her with her job. "Miss Beatty threated to fire mom, so Lori, Brain, and I started to helping mom with her schoolwork" (74). Rose Mary knows this job is a great source of income for her family. This job would give the family a constant income but the job ends up being short lived anyway. Rex also displays the same kind of carless attitude toward work that Rose Mary did. "He arranged to have himself fired because he wanted to spend more time looking for gold" (67). Although his job as an electrician in a barite mine is very beneficial to his family his does discontinue the job.