Tillie Olsen - I Stand Here Ironing

                I enjoyed reading the short story “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen.  This story is about the silent burdens of motherhood.  Olsen implies that the role of an unselfish mother that society expects women to accept is actually an obstacle to any kind of successful self-discovery.  Motherhood actually locks women in lives burdened with labor and extreme responsibility rather than helping women achieve self-actualization.  She offers a picture of motherhood left empty and trimmed of any romantic enhancement.  She gives the reader a character who compulsively reflects on the stricter, harsher experiences of family life.  The speaker reduces certain exaggerated notions concerning motherhood especially in particular with the importance of the child-parent bond.  The narrator no more understands Emily than the teacher or counselor who invites the mother’s face-to-face meeting.  The speaker is not immoral, rude, or intentionally neglectful but she is a conflicted victim of circumstance whose personal resources can go only so far.  The fact that the narrator was not able to participate in Emily’s life may have led to the vague issue that currently overwhelms the young woman.  The narrator is able to meet the basic physical needs of her children but she is incapable of forming a deeper, more emotional bond with them.  Absence appears heavily in this short story as the narrator feels remorseful about her emotional distance and decision to send Emily away for periods of recovery.  They have been absent from each other’s life for potions of Emily’s development.  Emily has known almost nothing but remoteness and displacement.  Emily’s mother sent her to an unaffectionate neighbor for day care when she was eight months old, then to the home of her father’s relatives, then to another caretaker, and finally to a rehabilitation facility.  Every time that Emily returned she was forced to reintegrate into the changing structure of the household.  Emily grew slowly and more detached and emotionally insensitive.  The iron is a symbol of the chores and responsibilities that have prevented the narrator from participating with Emily’s life greatly.  The title of this short story suggests that the narrator is constantly involved in the duties that she must perform to successfully care for her family.  This is very odd because it is these duties that pulled her away from Emily and decreased the quality of her care.  The recurring motion of the iron moving back and forth across the surface of the ironing board represents the narrator’s thought processes as she moves back and forth over her life as a mother, attempting to identify the source of Emily’s current difficulties.  The distance that is felt between the mother and Emily is personified in this simple act of ironing.  Emily’s wellbeing is the central concern of the story but the mother is more actively occupied in ironing Emily’s dress than in the life of the young woman who will wear it.  The final wish for the mother is that Emily will have a strong sense of self-worth and believe that she is more than the dress that is “helpless before the iron.”  The narrator hopes that Emily will be able to rise above the narrator’s mistakes, rather than yield to the circumstances of her birth.  This was a very touching story and it really made me stop and think just how precious life is especially for our own children.  They are only little one time and we should be there for them at all times.                                                  

SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on I Stand Here Ironing.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2007. Web. 14 Apr. 2011.