"I Stand Here Ironing"

The narrator in Olsen's work , " I Stand Here Ironing", has overwhelmed herself with undue guilt by depreciating her own parenting. In the 1930's the social norm was more that a man work and a woman tends to the family and the house work. The rarity of this mom working has implanted a feeling of guilt in her that in today's society would not be warranted. Olsen portrays this feeling of guilt throughout the story; " I let her be absent, though sometimes the illness was imaginary. How different from my now-strictness about attendance with the others. I wasn't working."(p.286) There is guilt in her for having to work to get by and leaving her daughter alone at nights to do so, but not having to do the same now with Emily's siblings. The only act she is guilty of is doing the best she could for Emily. Any good parent would do what they had to get by and support their children, and there is no shame or guilt in that. It is the ones that would not that should have to bear the weight of such guilt.