The Applicability of "I Stand Here Ironing" to Today's Culture

“I Stand Here Ironing,” written by Tillie Olson, focuses on the grief that a mother feels for neglecting her daughter, Emily, during her years of childhood. Emily’s mother has little time to spend with Emily and relies on her to do adult chores, because she is working constantly. As with Emily’s mother, parents today struggle to spend enough time nurturing their children and tend to overwhelm them with responsibilities at too young of an age.

In the 1930’s, society expected a mother to stay at home with her children, while her husband worked to support the family. In Emily’s case, her father leaves and her mother is left struggling to solely support her family. For the first six years, Emily’s mother works and, if there is not work, is forced to send Emily to live somewhere else. She sees that her daughter’s face “…is closed and somber…” (285) and knows that Emily “…does not smile easily, let alone almost always as her brothers and sisters do” (285) because she “…was a child seldom smiled at” (288). Emily’s seemingly cold inability to show her emotions is the consequence of a childhood devoid of personal attention from her mother, a sad situation that many children face today.

In the twenty-first century, parents multitask, raising children while working full-time jobs and devoting themselves to other activities as well. Society does not expect a mother to spend her days at home doing housework and tending to her children. Both parents tend to work full-time jobs, which leaves children spending most of their days in an institution, such as the nursery school that Emily is in, that is “…only [a] parking [place] for children” (284) as Emily‘s mother feels. Yes, today our nurseries and daycares focus on the healthy mental and physical growth of children, but these children still lack the time for bonding with their parents.

Along with the lack of bonding, children are participating in activities, such as dance classes, piano lessons and second language tutoring sessions to give them the competitive edge they need to excel later in life. This shows how children today are being asked to do more and more; gaining responsibilities at a younger age. These present day children are forced to think about their future instead of enjoying their present childhood. Emily does not participate in the exact activities that children do now, but she is forced to take on other activities that burden her with responsibilities that pull her away from her childhood. Emily “…had to help be a mother, and housekeeper, and shopper” (287). These adult responsibilities strip her of her childish innocence and force her to act with adult independence at a young age.

Emily becomes a mature, independent person at a young age. She is unable to let others comfort her, scarred by the many years that her mother does not spend bonding with her or openly showing her love for Emily. Now, parents spend much of their time working at their job or on projects, instead of playing with their children. Away from their parents for most of the day, the children learn to find other sources of happiness, through unproductive activities such as playing video games, watching TV, or surfing the internet. “I Stand Here Ironing” shows that, like children from the 1930’s, the children of today need loving attention from their parents, as well as the freedom to be carefree, an exclusive childhood privilege. Without parent-and-child bonding and freedom, children will mature too fast, becoming somber and cold, as Emily does.