Mercy of the Parent

Although "I Stand Here Ironing" is a mother's honest account on her failure of being a mother to her first-born daughter Emily, I find Emily to be the most sympathetic character in the story. Instability has defined the first few years of Emily's life, having been under the care of several adults in different locations. I imagine that a constant change of environment would have a psychological effect on a child's sense of self and how they interact with others, as shown in the story how Emily is socially withdrawn in school. Considering the setting of the Great Depression, I find the mother to be very unsympathetic not because of her failures to Emily but for the fact that this woman keeps popping out children despite being ill-equipped to raise one child and being poor. This irresponsible woman essentially creates a situation where Emily has to grow up quickly and become a sort of surrogate mother to her (five or six?) siblings to help her own mother. There is also the question of her employment, since this is during the Depression, we know that she has sporadic employment but we don't know what she actually does for a living. For me, the only redeeming quality the mother has is the fact that she recognizes that she failed Emily as stated in the following:

"She kept too much in herself, her life was such she had to keep too much in herself. My wisdom came too late. She has much in her and probably nothing will come of it. She is a child of her age, of depression, of war, of fear"

Going in to this story, I was expecting another tale along the line of the previous two, complete with effeminate males in "masculine" social positions but "I Stand Here Ironing" was a pleasant surprise.