"I Stand Here Ironing"

      In the short story "I Stand Here Ironing", Tillie Olsen tells the story of a mother reflecting on the mistakes she made while raising her first child as she was forced to work more often than not in order to stay afloat during the depression. As narrator looks back on how her decisions have negatively affected her daughter, her reflective point of view and remorseful tone illuminate the overall emotions that parents feel as they bear witness to how their choices directly manipulate their children's lives.

     Throughout the piece, Olsen utilizes a reflective point of view as well as a remorseful tone as the mother recalls the past nineteen years of her daughters life. As the mother reflects on her daughters life, she looks back full of regret, stating "She was a child seldom smiled at. Her father left me before she was a year old. I had to work for her first six years" (271). Similarly, the mother draws attention to the differing relationships she shares with her other children, failing "to hold her and lover her after she came back... and after a while she'd push away" (269). Overall, Olson conveys the mothers dismay and feelings of failure through her tone as well as point of view, illustrating the difficulties of the time period as well as the sometime unexpected trials and tribulations that adhere to motherhood. This story relates to parenthood through all eras, shedding light on the difficulties that parents face when attempting to create well rounded children as well as the challenges that watching your child struggle put on parents. In all, Tillie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing" provides insight into the difficulties that parents face as they raise their children through struggle.