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I Stand Here Ironing
Published in Tillie Olsen's short story collection "Tell Me a Riddle" in 1961.
First published January 1, 1961
About the author
Tillie Olsen
42 books117 followersTillie Lerner Olsen (January 14, 1912 – January 1, 2007) was an American writer associated with the political turmoil of the 1930s and the first generation of American feminists.
Though she published little, Olsen was very influential for her treatment of the lives of women and the poor. She drew attention to why women have been less likely to be published authors (and why they receive less attention than male authors when they do publish). Her work received recognition in the years of much feminist political and social activity. It contributed to new possibilities for women writers. Olsen's influence on American feminist fiction has caused some critics to be frustrated at simplistic feminist interpretations of her work. In particular, several critics have pointed to Olsen's Communist past as contributing to her thought. Olsen's fiction awards, and the ongoing attention to her work, is often focused upon her unique use of language and story form, a form close to poetry in compression and clarity, as well as upon the content.
Reviewing Olsen's life in The New York Times Book Review, Margaret Atwood attributed Olsen’s relatively small output to her full life as a wife and mother, a “grueling obstacle course” experienced by many writers. Her book Silences “ begins with an account, first drafted in 1962, of her own long, circumstantially enforced silence,” Atwood wrote. “She did not write for a very simple reason: A day has 24 hours. For 20 years she had no time, no energy and none of the money that would have bought both.”
In 1968, Olsen signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.
Once her books were published, Olsen became a teacher and writer-in-residence at numerous colleges, such as Amherst College, Stanford University, MIT, and Kenyon College. She was the recipient of nine honorary degrees, National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Also among the honors bestowed upon Olsen was the Rea Award for the Short Story, in 1994, for a lifetime of outstanding achievement in the field of short story writing.
Olsen died on January 1, 2007, in Oakland, California.
(from Wikipedia)
Though she published little, Olsen was very influential for her treatment of the lives of women and the poor. She drew attention to why women have been less likely to be published authors (and why they receive less attention than male authors when they do publish). Her work received recognition in the years of much feminist political and social activity. It contributed to new possibilities for women writers. Olsen's influence on American feminist fiction has caused some critics to be frustrated at simplistic feminist interpretations of her work. In particular, several critics have pointed to Olsen's Communist past as contributing to her thought. Olsen's fiction awards, and the ongoing attention to her work, is often focused upon her unique use of language and story form, a form close to poetry in compression and clarity, as well as upon the content.
Reviewing Olsen's life in The New York Times Book Review, Margaret Atwood attributed Olsen’s relatively small output to her full life as a wife and mother, a “grueling obstacle course” experienced by many writers. Her book Silences “ begins with an account, first drafted in 1962, of her own long, circumstantially enforced silence,” Atwood wrote. “She did not write for a very simple reason: A day has 24 hours. For 20 years she had no time, no energy and none of the money that would have bought both.”
In 1968, Olsen signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.
Once her books were published, Olsen became a teacher and writer-in-residence at numerous colleges, such as Amherst College, Stanford University, MIT, and Kenyon College. She was the recipient of nine honorary degrees, National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Also among the honors bestowed upon Olsen was the Rea Award for the Short Story, in 1994, for a lifetime of outstanding achievement in the field of short story writing.
Olsen died on January 1, 2007, in Oakland, California.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews
September 24, 2021
Though this is a very short story, there is much to be gained and pondered over.
As a mother stands ironing, she reflects on her teenage daughter Emily’s life. The mother was just 19 years of age when Emily was born, and the father walked out of their lives within months - couldn’t stand the ‘want’, - they were poor and struggling. Needless to say, life wasn’t easy for either of them, especially as over the years, four more kids followed.
This is a beautifully written tale, that gives pause for thought, and certainly tugs at the heartstrings!
"Only help her to know - help make it so there is cause for her to know - that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron"
As a mother stands ironing, she reflects on her teenage daughter Emily’s life. The mother was just 19 years of age when Emily was born, and the father walked out of their lives within months - couldn’t stand the ‘want’, - they were poor and struggling. Needless to say, life wasn’t easy for either of them, especially as over the years, four more kids followed.
This is a beautifully written tale, that gives pause for thought, and certainly tugs at the heartstrings!
"Only help her to know - help make it so there is cause for her to know - that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron"
September 4, 2020
I Stand Here Ironing by Tillie Olsen is a short story that had me searching for more about that author. Reading about the author allowed me to know that the mother in this short story is not her exactly, but it could be her. She experienced events that make this story hit too close to her real life, these feelings come from her heart and her experiences, even if they aren't exactly the same as what happened in the real life of her and her daughter.
A mother is ironing, as she reflects on the fact that her teenage daughter is having troubles and a visitor wants to know what might have led to her daughter having trouble dealing with life. This is a daughter that was born to a too young mother, left by the father, a daughter that was shuffled to other homes and even a hospital for children, for long periods of time. Then to be overshadowed by the mother's new family, afraid to make waves because her life had never been stable in the past.
So much feeling and heartbreak in such a short story but also you can see a mother's love in the acceptance of why her daughter is the way that she is now and how the mother is willing to let her daughter grow into herself, in the future. Published in Tillie Olsen's short story collection "Tell Me a Riddle" in 1961. A review by my Goodreads friend, Fran, brought this story to my attention.
I read this short story on this website:
https://www.shortstoryproject.com/sto...
A mother is ironing, as she reflects on the fact that her teenage daughter is having troubles and a visitor wants to know what might have led to her daughter having trouble dealing with life. This is a daughter that was born to a too young mother, left by the father, a daughter that was shuffled to other homes and even a hospital for children, for long periods of time. Then to be overshadowed by the mother's new family, afraid to make waves because her life had never been stable in the past.
So much feeling and heartbreak in such a short story but also you can see a mother's love in the acceptance of why her daughter is the way that she is now and how the mother is willing to let her daughter grow into herself, in the future. Published in Tillie Olsen's short story collection "Tell Me a Riddle" in 1961. A review by my Goodreads friend, Fran, brought this story to my attention.
I read this short story on this website:
https://www.shortstoryproject.com/sto...
July 8, 2020
A heartfelt and heartbreaking short story that made me cry, reminding me of my beautiful mother in some ways who sacrificed so much while raising five children and working in a factory in the evening to supplement my father’s income . Thanks to my Goodreads buddy Diane , I listened to this on YouTube. It’s well worth spending the just over 22 minutes it took , and has made me want to read more of Tillie Olsen’s stories.
February 2, 2023
Guilt
Parenthood, especially motherhood, and even more in patriarchal societies, is fraught with guilt. However straightforward one’s circumstances and however “easy” one’s child, contradictory voices are always telling us what to do and warning of the dire consequences of all the alternatives.
Earlier this week, I went to dinner with friends. We’re all mothers of children between late teens and late twenties, and one is also a teacher. Someone mentioned a recent news story about Teddy Hobbs, who taught himself to read aged two, can count to one hundred in six languages, and joined Mensa at three. We went on to sharing experiences of raising and educating children with a range of SEN (Special Educational Needs), including the oft-overlooked SEN of high IQ (we agree that IQ is a flawed measure).
When I got home, a GR friend had sent me a link to this short story (the reason is explained in my review of Eudora Welty’s Why I live at the P.O., HERE). Perfect timing.
Story
The mother, whose thoughts we're reading, has been asked to go to her nineteen-year old daughter’s college to talk to a member of staff who is concerned that Emily is “a youngster who needs help”. As she irons, the mother recalls the trajectory of her daughter's life, going back to her birth in the Depression years. The mother always tried to do the best, even when it was against her better judgement:
“I nursed her. They feel that's important nowadays. I nursed all the children, but with her, with all the fierce rigidity of first motherhood, I did like the books then said. Though her cries battered me to trembling and my breasts ached with swollenness, I waited till the clock decreed.”
Image: Accusing, disembodied fingers pointing at a mother holding a baby (Source)
She recalls her beautiful happy baby. A child now lost to her; a child perhaps lost to herself. Emily’s father left when she was eight months old, so her nineteen-year old mother had to work. Daycare, relatives, and nursery (“parking places for children”) chipped away at Emily’s selfhood and happiness. Some separations were long. The mother remarried and had other children whose childhoods were happier and easier. But it was all too late for Emily, though there was “never a direct protest, never rebellion”, which only makes it sadder.
This is an unhappy story, but not extreme, nor as unusual as it should be. What makes it notable is how well it's written: sad but not sentimental, and relatable, too.
Emily doesn’t necessarily have diagnosable SEN, certainly not by the standards of the time, but it chimed with many of my feelings and experiences when my high-IQ kid was acting out at school because they were so bored.
Emily is almost friendless, anxious, always struggling a little at school, and despairing at the likely nuclear annihilation of humankind. But she has recently discovered a talent:
“Now suddenly she was Somebody, and as imprisoned in her difference as she had been in anonymity.”
Again, her mother fears it’s too late:
“She has much to her and probably little will come of it. She is a child of her age, of depression, of war, of fear. Let her be. So all that is in her will not bloom - but in how many does it?”
That sounds heartless and hopeless, but when you read the whole story, you realise it’s more about acceptance (of herself and her daughter) and quiet support, whatever transpires.
“She is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron.”
Read it
You can read this story here. It’s very good.
Parenthood, especially motherhood, and even more in patriarchal societies, is fraught with guilt. However straightforward one’s circumstances and however “easy” one’s child, contradictory voices are always telling us what to do and warning of the dire consequences of all the alternatives.
Earlier this week, I went to dinner with friends. We’re all mothers of children between late teens and late twenties, and one is also a teacher. Someone mentioned a recent news story about Teddy Hobbs, who taught himself to read aged two, can count to one hundred in six languages, and joined Mensa at three. We went on to sharing experiences of raising and educating children with a range of SEN (Special Educational Needs), including the oft-overlooked SEN of high IQ (we agree that IQ is a flawed measure).
When I got home, a GR friend had sent me a link to this short story (the reason is explained in my review of Eudora Welty’s Why I live at the P.O., HERE). Perfect timing.
Story
The mother, whose thoughts we're reading, has been asked to go to her nineteen-year old daughter’s college to talk to a member of staff who is concerned that Emily is “a youngster who needs help”. As she irons, the mother recalls the trajectory of her daughter's life, going back to her birth in the Depression years. The mother always tried to do the best, even when it was against her better judgement:
“I nursed her. They feel that's important nowadays. I nursed all the children, but with her, with all the fierce rigidity of first motherhood, I did like the books then said. Though her cries battered me to trembling and my breasts ached with swollenness, I waited till the clock decreed.”
Image: Accusing, disembodied fingers pointing at a mother holding a baby (Source)
She recalls her beautiful happy baby. A child now lost to her; a child perhaps lost to herself. Emily’s father left when she was eight months old, so her nineteen-year old mother had to work. Daycare, relatives, and nursery (“parking places for children”) chipped away at Emily’s selfhood and happiness. Some separations were long. The mother remarried and had other children whose childhoods were happier and easier. But it was all too late for Emily, though there was “never a direct protest, never rebellion”, which only makes it sadder.
This is an unhappy story, but not extreme, nor as unusual as it should be. What makes it notable is how well it's written: sad but not sentimental, and relatable, too.
Emily doesn’t necessarily have diagnosable SEN, certainly not by the standards of the time, but it chimed with many of my feelings and experiences when my high-IQ kid was acting out at school because they were so bored.
Emily is almost friendless, anxious, always struggling a little at school, and despairing at the likely nuclear annihilation of humankind. But she has recently discovered a talent:
“Now suddenly she was Somebody, and as imprisoned in her difference as she had been in anonymity.”
Again, her mother fears it’s too late:
“She has much to her and probably little will come of it. She is a child of her age, of depression, of war, of fear. Let her be. So all that is in her will not bloom - but in how many does it?”
That sounds heartless and hopeless, but when you read the whole story, you realise it’s more about acceptance (of herself and her daughter) and quiet support, whatever transpires.
“She is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron.”
Read it
You can read this story here. It’s very good.
July 8, 2020
I read this short story just before going to sleep last night and am thinking about it this morning and remembering my own difficult times as a young mother to my own first daughter.
In this story the narrator is ironing and is approached by someone (possibly a teacher) to think about her firstborn daughter to discuss ways to help her.
She s a mother of five but had her daughter Emily young and in difficult circumstances.. Emily had to endure a lot,
this story is kind of like a confession on how she raised that daughter and parts of the story just hurt my heart for both mother and daughter.
Thank you Angela for your review of this, which brought it to my attention!
You can listen to it here:
https://youtu.be/-2oFe2aT_F8
Or you can read it here:
https://jerrywbrown.com/wp-content/up...
In this story the narrator is ironing and is approached by someone (possibly a teacher) to think about her firstborn daughter to discuss ways to help her.
She s a mother of five but had her daughter Emily young and in difficult circumstances.. Emily had to endure a lot,
this story is kind of like a confession on how she raised that daughter and parts of the story just hurt my heart for both mother and daughter.
Thank you Angela for your review of this, which brought it to my attention!
You can listen to it here:
https://youtu.be/-2oFe2aT_F8
Or you can read it here:
https://jerrywbrown.com/wp-content/up...
August 29, 2020
Portrait of a young mother trying her best to raise her first born daughter, Emily. Times were difficult and a heavy price was paid by both mother and daughter. An excellent, heartfelt, moving story told in a just a mere few pages. Thank you Karen and Angela for the heads up!
You can listen to it here:
https://youtu.be/-2oFe2aT_F8
Or you can read it here:
https://jerrywbrown.com/wp-content/up...
You can listen to it here:
https://youtu.be/-2oFe2aT_F8
Or you can read it here:
https://jerrywbrown.com/wp-content/up...
July 18, 2020
I Stand Here Ironing free online
Rating: all the stars there can ever be
If you have never read this extremely short story, only five or so pages, please click on the link above and do so. Tillie Olsen was a genius whose life was blighted by being unable to afford a room of her own, in Woolf's formulation; she was impoverished, a leftist in a conformist world, a woman with daughters to support, clothes to iron, a husband to...who the heck cares. This isn't about him in any way.
This is motherguilt. This is bone-deep regret and sadness and lacerating unhappiness. This is Tillie, the unnamed mother, the giver of life to Emily and the taker of happiness and self-worth from Emily, processing the hard truth that she failed. The best choices and the most strenuous desire to Do Right can only get you so far.
Brutally frankly, this oft-anthologized story that came into the world in 1961 but is about the 1930s, 1940s, and earliest 1950s should have sparked street riots and rebellions against the smug, assholish conformity, greed, and selfishness of the white American Dreamworld. There is absolutely nothing good to say about a world in which:
Emily, poor angel, can't ever quite be coped with and integrated anywhere, and that always begins at home. Tillie tells us why, the facts of why and the feelings of how, she came to fail her oldest daughter. And she can't even pretend to herself, in the silence inside her skull, that she didn't know even then that she was failing.
A monologue from a sad, defeated woman to an unseen interlocutor? REALLY? NOW?!
Really. Now. And again later, and (if you're like me, reading this gorgeous torture for the who-knows-th time) again after that. Remind yourself that you're on this Earth to lighten the burden of Tillie and her myriad of sisters because, by all those useless gods you keep talking about, You. Can.
Rating: all the stars there can ever be
If you have never read this extremely short story, only five or so pages, please click on the link above and do so. Tillie Olsen was a genius whose life was blighted by being unable to afford a room of her own, in Woolf's formulation; she was impoverished, a leftist in a conformist world, a woman with daughters to support, clothes to iron, a husband to...who the heck cares. This isn't about him in any way.
This is motherguilt. This is bone-deep regret and sadness and lacerating unhappiness. This is Tillie, the unnamed mother, the giver of life to Emily and the taker of happiness and self-worth from Emily, processing the hard truth that she failed. The best choices and the most strenuous desire to Do Right can only get you so far.
Brutally frankly, this oft-anthologized story that came into the world in 1961 but is about the 1930s, 1940s, and earliest 1950s should have sparked street riots and rebellions against the smug, assholish conformity, greed, and selfishness of the white American Dreamworld. There is absolutely nothing good to say about a world in which:
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. “Licorice was his favorite and I brought him some every day, but he still liked Jennifer better’n me. Why, Mommy?” The kind of question for which there is no answer.
School was a worry to her. She was not glib or quick in a world where glibness and quickness were easily confused with ability to learn. To her overworked and exasperated teachers she was an overconscientious “slow learner” who kept trying to catch up and was absent entirely too often.
Emily, poor angel, can't ever quite be coped with and integrated anywhere, and that always begins at home. Tillie tells us why, the facts of why and the feelings of how, she came to fail her oldest daughter. And she can't even pretend to herself, in the silence inside her skull, that she didn't know even then that she was failing.
A monologue from a sad, defeated woman to an unseen interlocutor? REALLY? NOW?!
Really. Now. And again later, and (if you're like me, reading this gorgeous torture for the who-knows-th time) again after that. Remind yourself that you're on this Earth to lighten the burden of Tillie and her myriad of sisters because, by all those useless gods you keep talking about, You. Can.
July 9, 2023
A short story about a mother’s feelings of guilt over the way she raised her daughter.
Written in the first person point of the mother, the story begins with her reminiscing after someone, presumably some guide or counsellor, has asked for the mother’s help in talking to Emily and understanding her better. As this request flutters into the mother’s mind while she stands ironing, she goes over past memories, looking back at Emily’s childhood as the first of five children, born during the time of the Depression. As Emily’s father had walked out just a few months after her birth, it was up to the young mother to do her best, even when it went against her gut feelings.
The entire story focusses just on the feelings of the mother, divided over the events of the past and wondering if there was anything she could do differently. She also recollects the Emily of today, self-sufficient and strong despite her tough early years.
This tale is quite contemplative in nature. As the mother ruminates over her past, you get to see bits and pieces of the events that made Emily who is she is today. Maybe you will also wonder what you would have done were you in the mother’s place. Or, in Emily’s.
I would have liked a few of the gaps to be filled in as the story glosses over several key facts that would have helped me understand the jigsaw of the past better. Nevertheless, a good short work.
This isn’t a quick or light-hearted story, but to be read when you want something to ponder over.
3.5 stars.
This classic was first published in the author’s short story collection ‘Tell Me A Riddle’ in 1961. You can read this tale online for free using the below link:
https://jerrywbrown.com/wp-content/up...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Connect with me through:
My Blog | The StoryGraph | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Written in the first person point of the mother, the story begins with her reminiscing after someone, presumably some guide or counsellor, has asked for the mother’s help in talking to Emily and understanding her better. As this request flutters into the mother’s mind while she stands ironing, she goes over past memories, looking back at Emily’s childhood as the first of five children, born during the time of the Depression. As Emily’s father had walked out just a few months after her birth, it was up to the young mother to do her best, even when it went against her gut feelings.
The entire story focusses just on the feelings of the mother, divided over the events of the past and wondering if there was anything she could do differently. She also recollects the Emily of today, self-sufficient and strong despite her tough early years.
This tale is quite contemplative in nature. As the mother ruminates over her past, you get to see bits and pieces of the events that made Emily who is she is today. Maybe you will also wonder what you would have done were you in the mother’s place. Or, in Emily’s.
I would have liked a few of the gaps to be filled in as the story glosses over several key facts that would have helped me understand the jigsaw of the past better. Nevertheless, a good short work.
This isn’t a quick or light-hearted story, but to be read when you want something to ponder over.
3.5 stars.
This classic was first published in the author’s short story collection ‘Tell Me A Riddle’ in 1961. You can read this tale online for free using the below link:
https://jerrywbrown.com/wp-content/up...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Connect with me through:
My Blog | The StoryGraph | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
January 31, 2023
5★
“You think because I am her mother I have a key, or that in some way you could use me as a key? She has lived for nineteen years. There is all that life that has happened outside of me, beyond me.”
This mother is ironing and has been asked to “come in” and talk about her daughter, to help someone to understand her in order to help her. (I assume this is school or college.) Mother begins to think back on the frazzled life she’s led with her first-born, Emily.
“I was nineteen. It was the pre-relief, pre-WPA world of the depression. I would start running as soon as I got off the streetcar, running up the stairs, the place smelling sour, and awake or asleep to startle awake, when she saw me she would break into a clogged weeping that could not be comforted, a weeping I can hear yet.
After a while I found a job hashing at night so I could be with her days, and it was better. But it came to where I had to bring her to his family and leave her.”
She often had to leave her daughter in the care of others and says she will never be able to collect all the thoughts and feelings she has to explain to anyone how to help her first child. There are other children, and Emily is nineteen now, making her own way.
“Ronnie is calling. He is wet and I change him. It is rare there is such a cry now. That time of motherhood is almost behind me when the ear is not one's own but must always be racked and listening for the child cry, the child call.”
The child call. She missed so many of those in Emily’s childhood and will never get over feeling guilty about it.
I loved how the mother manages to collect enough memories after all to paint such a complete picture of the times and of the young woman her daughter is becoming. I'd like to know more about Emily.
Wonderful story, available online:
Download PDF of I Stand Here Ironing
“You think because I am her mother I have a key, or that in some way you could use me as a key? She has lived for nineteen years. There is all that life that has happened outside of me, beyond me.”
This mother is ironing and has been asked to “come in” and talk about her daughter, to help someone to understand her in order to help her. (I assume this is school or college.) Mother begins to think back on the frazzled life she’s led with her first-born, Emily.
“I was nineteen. It was the pre-relief, pre-WPA world of the depression. I would start running as soon as I got off the streetcar, running up the stairs, the place smelling sour, and awake or asleep to startle awake, when she saw me she would break into a clogged weeping that could not be comforted, a weeping I can hear yet.
After a while I found a job hashing at night so I could be with her days, and it was better. But it came to where I had to bring her to his family and leave her.”
She often had to leave her daughter in the care of others and says she will never be able to collect all the thoughts and feelings she has to explain to anyone how to help her first child. There are other children, and Emily is nineteen now, making her own way.
“Ronnie is calling. He is wet and I change him. It is rare there is such a cry now. That time of motherhood is almost behind me when the ear is not one's own but must always be racked and listening for the child cry, the child call.”
The child call. She missed so many of those in Emily’s childhood and will never get over feeling guilty about it.
I loved how the mother manages to collect enough memories after all to paint such a complete picture of the times and of the young woman her daughter is becoming. I'd like to know more about Emily.
Wonderful story, available online:
Download PDF of I Stand Here Ironing
July 17, 2020
Being a parent is not easy even under the best of circumstances.
In this classic five page short story, I STAND HERE IRONING, a mother revisits the life of her oldest daughter she birthed as a teen, the sacrifices and hard choices she had to make in order to earn a living and the sorrow she felt for the child's suffering and loneliness.
"Only help her to know - help make it so there is cause for her to know - that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron."
Tillie Olsen's writing makes the reader feel the gut-wrenching pain of the mother as if you lived the haunting memory yourself. Oh my......
Thank you to my Goodread's friends, Diane S., Angela M., Sara and Karen for your ever present wonderful reviews and the link to read this memorable story.
July 2, 2020
Said to be semi-autobiographical, this story is so incredibly full of meaning. Constantly working, house chores never done, a woman is ironing her family's clothes, when a visitor arrives. it seems her eldest daughter is having some kind of trouble in school and the visitor wants to be told about her daughter. What follows is a honest, unflinching take about why she could not help. Her life is not her own and with do much always to do their is much, out of neccissity that passed her by. it has a brilliant last line.
Can be found on you tube and on the web in PDF form.
Can be found on you tube and on the web in PDF form.
July 5, 2020
Tillie Olsen does a remarkable thing. She reduces two entire lives to a seven page short story. She paints them complete and offers us up their every sorrow and joy on a canvas that bleeds.
It won’t take you long, but it will matter that you read it. If you are a mother, it might teach you something or make you consider anew; if you are a daughter, it might make you look at your mother with a forgiving heart.
There was a tiny girl who always stood hand in hand with Emily. Her parents
never came. One visit she was gone. "They moved her to Rose Cottage," Emily shouted
in explanation. "They don't like you to love anybody here."
That line alone should make you cry.
Read It Here
My special thanks to Diane S. for introducing me to this story and writer. I love my Goodreads friends!
It won’t take you long, but it will matter that you read it. If you are a mother, it might teach you something or make you consider anew; if you are a daughter, it might make you look at your mother with a forgiving heart.
There was a tiny girl who always stood hand in hand with Emily. Her parents
never came. One visit she was gone. "They moved her to Rose Cottage," Emily shouted
in explanation. "They don't like you to love anybody here."
That line alone should make you cry.
Read It Here
My special thanks to Diane S. for introducing me to this story and writer. I love my Goodreads friends!
April 28, 2023
While a mother stands ironing to eke out a living, time moves on. Her daughter, now 19 years old, is a stranger. What went wrong?
I felt the single mother’s regret at the lost opportunities to be more present when Emily was a young child. I also felt sorry for young Emily who desperately needed her mother. This is a heartbreaking story of a working woman’s sense of loss when it seemed too late to reclaim the years flattened by the ironing board that was her livelihood. In five pages, Olsen conveyed the pathos and sadness of a mother who tried her best and still fell short.
The story can be read here: I Stand Here Ironing
I felt the single mother’s regret at the lost opportunities to be more present when Emily was a young child. I also felt sorry for young Emily who desperately needed her mother. This is a heartbreaking story of a working woman’s sense of loss when it seemed too late to reclaim the years flattened by the ironing board that was her livelihood. In five pages, Olsen conveyed the pathos and sadness of a mother who tried her best and still fell short.
The story can be read here: I Stand Here Ironing
July 25, 2020
Remarkable, moving, sad, portrait of a time, the harvest of parenting in a sere, unsupportive world.
The story is available free on-line
The story is available free on-line
March 26, 2023
This is such an affecting story that completely engulfs you in the guilt a mother feels while trying her best to raise a child. This story is a gut punch of emotion for any woman who is a mother and has an understanding of just how hard it can be to be a parent.
The mother in this story reminisces about her eldest daughter’s upbringing coming to some humbling realizations. Some of the obstacles she faced surface to her memory and remind her about some of the inevitable consequences to her oldest daughter. How true and honest this mother is. It took me back to when I was a new mom just trying to figure it all out. Regrets abound and letting go of shortcomings can be so hard. Olsen conveys the worries and sadness so realistically.
Read this story here
Thank you to Laysee who put this story in my path!
September 5, 2020
After reading GR Friends’ reviews and then some analyses, I see that I had a completely different take on the story. Since the story has been analyzed to death, I guess mine is wrong (meaning the author had other intent, especially since she is noted to be a feminist writer). Yet, my view is grounded in my own experience of motherhood (woman and feminist though I may be)– although I suffered none of the objective or physical hardships described by the mother in this story.
I felt this to be a sad but brutally honest reaction of a mother being told that her daughter needs help. One might argue that times have changed and that parents eagerly wish to help their children both stay afloat and get ahead, but, even so, I believe that it is a universal truth that no mother wants to hear that there is something wrong with her child, or that her child has special needs emotionally or physically which she does not fulfill. A mother feels guilt and pain for every hurt, slight, or failure suffered by her child. Standing over the ironing board may be symbolic of a woman’s role at the time, but I think it more a repetitive task by example that releases the mind from obsessive guilty ruminations, calming, escaping – an escape from the obsessive guilt that a mother feels for any inadequacy perceived in her child; she has no friends, she’s not smart or quick like the rest, she is outshone by her siblings…. The mother can find at least a half dozen excuses why she has failed Emily, but when she irons, she is able to puts things into perspective – “Let her be. So all that is in her will not bloom - but in how many does it? There is still enough left to live by.” She knows this to be true – for most people in the world, and for herself. Even so, she still she cannot absolutely release her guilt and prays; “Only help her to know - help make it so there is cause for her to know - that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron.” – that she hopes all that is in Emily will bloom – because she is a mother and cannot help but wish more for her daughter than guilty ruminations over an ironing board.
I felt this to be a sad but brutally honest reaction of a mother being told that her daughter needs help. One might argue that times have changed and that parents eagerly wish to help their children both stay afloat and get ahead, but, even so, I believe that it is a universal truth that no mother wants to hear that there is something wrong with her child, or that her child has special needs emotionally or physically which she does not fulfill. A mother feels guilt and pain for every hurt, slight, or failure suffered by her child. Standing over the ironing board may be symbolic of a woman’s role at the time, but I think it more a repetitive task by example that releases the mind from obsessive guilty ruminations, calming, escaping – an escape from the obsessive guilt that a mother feels for any inadequacy perceived in her child; she has no friends, she’s not smart or quick like the rest, she is outshone by her siblings…. The mother can find at least a half dozen excuses why she has failed Emily, but when she irons, she is able to puts things into perspective – “Let her be. So all that is in her will not bloom - but in how many does it? There is still enough left to live by.” She knows this to be true – for most people in the world, and for herself. Even so, she still she cannot absolutely release her guilt and prays; “Only help her to know - help make it so there is cause for her to know - that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron.” – that she hopes all that is in Emily will bloom – because she is a mother and cannot help but wish more for her daughter than guilty ruminations over an ironing board.
September 11, 2020
This is a short story about motherhood and regret but also hope. If you are a mother and you read this, it is likely you will feel a little tug on your heart, having raised children in the best way you can. There is no way to go back and do things differently, you can only hope you haven't messed up too badly. I think a powerful quote from this story is this:
"My wisdom came too late."
Raising children can bring us such joy but also so much second guessing and feelings of 'could have' and 'should have.' This short, moving read was brought to my attention by my GR friend, Marilyn, who shared the link below where I read this. Thanks, Marilyn!
https://www.shortstoryproject.com/sto...
"My wisdom came too late."
Raising children can bring us such joy but also so much second guessing and feelings of 'could have' and 'should have.' This short, moving read was brought to my attention by my GR friend, Marilyn, who shared the link below where I read this. Thanks, Marilyn!
https://www.shortstoryproject.com/sto...
January 26, 2023
The mother/narrator of this story thinks back on how she was unable to provide the kind of nurturing her firstborn daughter needed after her husband left them. Poverty, the need to find child care while she worked, and her daughter's health were all challenges. As the mother irons, she reflects on the ups and downs of her daughter's life after being contacted by a concerned teacher:
"Only help her to know - help make it so there is cause for her to know - that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron."
"Only help her to know - help make it so there is cause for her to know - that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron."
July 24, 2020
A short story by Tillie Olsen that was originally published in 1961 as part of her short story collection Tell Me a Riddle.
I wanted to read this after seeing my friend Angela’s review for this short story. This is a heartbreaking story that fit, time-wise, into some time I had set aside today, and I’m glad that I read it, although it made me tear up more than once.
This story can be read, for free, here:
https://www.shortstoryproject.com/sto...
Angela's review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I wanted to read this after seeing my friend Angela’s review for this short story. This is a heartbreaking story that fit, time-wise, into some time I had set aside today, and I’m glad that I read it, although it made me tear up more than once.
This story can be read, for free, here:
https://www.shortstoryproject.com/sto...
Angela's review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
January 30, 2019
Another short story I liked. In this one we get to see whole life story in a little moment because the main character is reminiscing while ironing. I loved how Oslen played with time that way.
I liked the ending as well. It felt conclusive, and I like how it linked back to the present and the ironing.
The theme of motherhood and trying to do your best by your children while being a working, busy, single mother... that really resounded hard. Such a struggle to go through, but like any mother you get the sense that she really just wanted the best for her child as much as things went wrong. If you read this short story for any reason, read it for how well it handles this subject matter.
Oslen has a lovely writing style.
I also really enjoyed how we get to know all about her eldest daughter without once ever getting to meet the character ourselves (excepting that one speech comment at the end!). We firmly seeing things through the mother's eyes and that is all, but we get to know her character inside out regardless.
Read for university.
I liked the ending as well. It felt conclusive, and I like how it linked back to the present and the ironing.
The theme of motherhood and trying to do your best by your children while being a working, busy, single mother... that really resounded hard. Such a struggle to go through, but like any mother you get the sense that she really just wanted the best for her child as much as things went wrong. If you read this short story for any reason, read it for how well it handles this subject matter.
Oslen has a lovely writing style.
I also really enjoyed how we get to know all about her eldest daughter without once ever getting to meet the character ourselves (excepting that one speech comment at the end!). We firmly seeing things through the mother's eyes and that is all, but we get to know her character inside out regardless.
Read for university.
March 10, 2021
A touching short story in which a woman reflects on a life of hardship, and laments how these trying circumstances dictated the way she raised her eldest daughter. Poignant and heartbreaking. I'd never heard of Tillie Olsen but I'd like to read more by her, this one is available for a free listen on YouTube.
May 14, 2020
“Julga que por eu ser mãe dela tenho uma chave, ou que terá maneira de poder usar-me como chave? Veio ao mundo há 19 anos. Toda essa vida foi passada fora de mim, para lá de mim. E quando é que eu tenho tempo para recordar, esmiuçar, sopesar, avaliar, fazer um balanço? Sempre que me disponho a isso, alguma coisa acaba por se interpor, e lá tenho de reconstituir tudo de novo. Ou então consumo-me na voragem do que fiz e não fiz, do que poderia ter sido e não tem remédio.
Num pequeno monólogo, uma mulher medita sobre a sua vida desde que é mãe de Emily, explicando como a falta de condições, a existência de irmãos mais novos e a falta de tempo decorrente da lida doméstica e do emprego condicionaram a relação entre ambas e afectou o carácter da filha. Que ela o faça enquanto passa a ferro é um acto bastante simbólico, numa tarefa que para mim tem tanto de estupidificante como de libertadora da mente.
Num pequeno monólogo, uma mulher medita sobre a sua vida desde que é mãe de Emily, explicando como a falta de condições, a existência de irmãos mais novos e a falta de tempo decorrente da lida doméstica e do emprego condicionaram a relação entre ambas e afectou o carácter da filha. Que ela o faça enquanto passa a ferro é um acto bastante simbólico, numa tarefa que para mim tem tanto de estupidificante como de libertadora da mente.
July 7, 2020
Read at https://www.shortstoryproject.com/sto...
This was a very good short story, that shares the feelings that a single mother felt by the way she tells her story. It touches your heart-strings and you can tell how hard her life has been. She describes how much she wishes she could have been able to provide a easier, happier life especially for her first-born daughter who had the hardest time of all her children growing up. Tillie Olsen does a fantastic job telling this short story.
This was a very good short story, that shares the feelings that a single mother felt by the way she tells her story. It touches your heart-strings and you can tell how hard her life has been. She describes how much she wishes she could have been able to provide a easier, happier life especially for her first-born daughter who had the hardest time of all her children growing up. Tillie Olsen does a fantastic job telling this short story.
July 5, 2020
A short free read online.
I think every mother here will see something of her first born in this story. As the preface says, more is said of all the negatives in the girl's life than the positives. No wonder the girl became a comedian and actress!
I think every mother here will see something of her first born in this story. As the preface says, more is said of all the negatives in the girl's life than the positives. No wonder the girl became a comedian and actress!
November 17, 2018
t is necessary to know a little something about the author, Tillie Olsen.
She was born poor, in Omaha in 1912, to a couple who had fled Czarist Russia to escape persecution. She had to quit school in her 11th grade to work. She married young, had a daughter, and then her husband deserted them. This is said to read like an autobiography so what it says is probably true: her husband left when her daughter was less than a year old and she was nineteen. He said goodbye through a letter where he wrote that he "could no longer endure sharing want with (them)."
She later married a labor activist/printer by whom she had three more children. A dropout, a young mother, poor--how did she become an author and why did Stanford University awarded her a creative-writing fellowship when her youngest child began schooling? It was because she continued her education reading up in public libraries. A heroic act, considering her difficult circumstances. In 1978 her "Silences" was published--a study of why writers, especially women writers, dry up.
The story here starts with a sentence only a mother could write:
"I stand here ironing, and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth with the iron."
It seems someone had visited her about her eldest daughter, nineteen, who is having some problems in school. It starts her soliloquy of rage, complaints, helplessness, self-exoneration, guilt, resignation, pride, despair, love and self-pity, as she talks about her first born and as she irons her family's clothes. This daughter of hers was a beautiful baby, she says, and she nursed her, but when she was 8 months old she had to leave her during daytimes to a stranger downstairs because she had to work, and then that was the time her husband left them. Her young daughter suffered years of neglect, which she couldn't help, because she was poor, young and had no money. He remembers incidents, like when her daughter didn't want to go to school, suffering from some uncertain torture there, or when she pleads one day for her to stay home with her more often, when she became skeleton thin because she wouldn't eat, her frequent nightmares at night, her noticeable lack of friends, her unrequited little crushes, her absentmindedness and failure to cope with school lessons, and she knew it was because she couldn't give much attention and care to this daughter of hers since there are other small children she must take care of apart from her need to work to bring food to the table and do housework and later be a wife to her second husband.
This is gut-wrenching prose. For it is in the nature of every mother to want to give everything to her child and for her to be put in a situation that she can give only very little, as she watch her child suffer, is like a most cruel flagellation.
She was born poor, in Omaha in 1912, to a couple who had fled Czarist Russia to escape persecution. She had to quit school in her 11th grade to work. She married young, had a daughter, and then her husband deserted them. This is said to read like an autobiography so what it says is probably true: her husband left when her daughter was less than a year old and she was nineteen. He said goodbye through a letter where he wrote that he "could no longer endure sharing want with (them)."
She later married a labor activist/printer by whom she had three more children. A dropout, a young mother, poor--how did she become an author and why did Stanford University awarded her a creative-writing fellowship when her youngest child began schooling? It was because she continued her education reading up in public libraries. A heroic act, considering her difficult circumstances. In 1978 her "Silences" was published--a study of why writers, especially women writers, dry up.
The story here starts with a sentence only a mother could write:
"I stand here ironing, and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth with the iron."
It seems someone had visited her about her eldest daughter, nineteen, who is having some problems in school. It starts her soliloquy of rage, complaints, helplessness, self-exoneration, guilt, resignation, pride, despair, love and self-pity, as she talks about her first born and as she irons her family's clothes. This daughter of hers was a beautiful baby, she says, and she nursed her, but when she was 8 months old she had to leave her during daytimes to a stranger downstairs because she had to work, and then that was the time her husband left them. Her young daughter suffered years of neglect, which she couldn't help, because she was poor, young and had no money. He remembers incidents, like when her daughter didn't want to go to school, suffering from some uncertain torture there, or when she pleads one day for her to stay home with her more often, when she became skeleton thin because she wouldn't eat, her frequent nightmares at night, her noticeable lack of friends, her unrequited little crushes, her absentmindedness and failure to cope with school lessons, and she knew it was because she couldn't give much attention and care to this daughter of hers since there are other small children she must take care of apart from her need to work to bring food to the table and do housework and later be a wife to her second husband.
This is gut-wrenching prose. For it is in the nature of every mother to want to give everything to her child and for her to be put in a situation that she can give only very little, as she watch her child suffer, is like a most cruel flagellation.
June 11, 2021
If you are a mother, you will recognise the challenges that all mothers face in making decisions which they hope will be to the benefit of the children, but so often does not work out as expected, the balancing of earning an income to maintain the children versus their needs for presence. An amazing view on motherhood in so few pages.
January 25, 2023
All the worries of motherhood in six pages.
July 8, 2020
The crushing reality of working motherhood
May 8, 2018
" Let her be. So all that is in her will not bloom-but in how many does it? There is still enough left to live by. Only help her to know- help make it so there is cause for her to know- that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron. "
This is a five pages-long short-story, read for school, and I actually liked it, and it is so rare for me to like a read dedicated for school.
It's a very short story, yet has so much meaning to it, it's a mother telling to no one in particular how she had raised her first daughter whom she had when she was only nineteen and alone. It's so engaging and moving that the mother's feelings get to you while reading. Though, I would have loved it better if it was more elaborate.
This work is encouraging to discover more of Tillie Olsen's writings.
March 20, 2021
This was beautifully written and a short every mother of a teen should read. Written in 1961 about a post-war era, a working mom doing what she felt she needed to do. Many regrets and many moments of wisdom the mother felt came too late.
https://www.shortstoryproject.com/sto...
https://www.shortstoryproject.com/sto...
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