"I Stand Here Ironing"

The events the story presents from the 1930s could happen today because it seems as though the economy still has it's ups and downs as it did back then. The gas prices and poor housing markets, etc. seem to be effecting our nation everyday.

In "I Stand Here Ironing" the reader gets the sense that the mother is trying her hardest to make ends meet, being she's a single parent and the hard times of the depression. There seems to be more single parents than there ever used to be. It's not unlikely to hear of a single parent trying to raise their children on top of trying to make ends meet. Reading about a single parent and trying to make ends meet during the time of the depression of the 1930s was strange because it was unheard of back then. Today, it's not unlikely at all to hear of a single parent trying to keep their head up above.

The reader can get a sense of the jealousy between Emily and her younger sister on page 287 in the 2nd paragraph. The narrator states, "Oh there are conflicts between the others too, each one human, needing, demanding, hurting, taking - but only between Emily and Susan, no, Emily toward Susand that corroding resentment. It seems so obvious on the surface, yet it is not obvious. Susand, the second child, Susan, golden-and curly-haired and chubby, quick and articulate and assured, everything in appearance and manner Emily was not; Susan, not able to resist Emily's precious things, losing or sometimes clumsily breaking them; Susan telling jokes and riddles to company for applause while Emily sat silent (to say to me later: that was my riddle, Mother, I told it to Susan); Susan, who for all the five years' difference in age was just a year behind Emily in developing physcially." A young girl being jealous of her younger sister is also something that hasn't changed from the 1930s especially being from different fathers. Jealousy is becoming a bigger thing as the years keep coming and going. Today, it seems there's more competition between siblings in things like sports and other extra-cirricular activities than there used to be, being there wasn't as many choices back then. Also, there seems to be more competition in natural beauty and "getting the guy" today than there used to be. The reader can see how Emily tries to get a boy to like her on page 286 in paragraph 8 where the narrator says, "There was a boy she loved painfully through two school semesters. Months later she told me how she had taken pennies from my purse to buy him candy."

Overall, there are a few things that wouldn't be unheard of happening today that happened in this story during the depression. In a way we are going through another (not as rough) depression today. Jobs are becoming more scarce, lay-offs are becoming more popular, and there are many more families today that are single parent families just trying to make ends meet.