I Stand Here Ironing Response. Edgar Diaz

This story " I Stand Here Ironing" is told by the narrator, being the mother of Emily. Her mother expresses how she feels emotionally distant from her daughter as she had to send her away many times in the course of her upbringing. Emily growing up starts to feel like a forgotten child and every time she came back home it was always different since she would need to adjust to the changes done around her home and the distance of her family since she would have to reintegrate herself. When she was a little baby of just eight months old she left to be taken care of a neighbor, then with her fathers family, another caretaker and finally a facility. Her father fled from the family as he could not stand being around the poverty. As the narrator would move the Iron back and forth on Emily's dress, it  mimicked her thought process of her life and how she could not always be there being that she had to work in order to make money as well as take care of the responsibilities being a single mom. She wants Emily to have a strong sense of self worth and believe that she is more then the dress which is " helpless before the iron ". I believe this expression meant that Emily can transcend and not make the same mistakes her mother made but to strive for something greater