Routines of Life

Author's Note - This is a non-fiction response to the novel, Rules of the Road, by Joan Bauer. The main character, Jenna, has an alcoholic for a dad and doesn't see him often. He cared more about how much money he had and how clean his cars were than his daughters as a result of this scary lifestyle. In this response, I took a quote that talked about this problem and explained how it affected his life.


Many people are stuck with the same grueling schedule day after day, month after month, year after year, and begin to lose track of the vital things in life. When a person can no longer distinguish whether or not their family is the most important to them, despair will soon become evident in their lives. "He took better care of those cars than he did his family. I guess people take special care of the tings that are important to them." (108) As Jenna's dad became more and more tied up in his alcoholism, he began to lose track of the events and happenings in his family's life. Soon, the repetitiveness of his bad habits made the illusion that drinking alcohol all the time and focusing more on money and cars than his own daughters was the way to go. In the long run, his horrific and daunting ways caught up with him and he soon lost the trust of his wife and daughters. This harsh outcome could've been avoided, if only he had taken a step back from the mindless routine and evaluated how he lived his life.