My Son The Man

Family relationship is important in making every member feel safe, protected and loved. A strong relationship helps enhance a families trust and unity with the bond between a parent and a child that holds a special relationship with each other. Through the reading of Sharon Olds’ poem “My Son the Man”, a mother is witnessing her son growing up into a man. Olds explores her sadness on how her son matures, while also realizing he is able to escape from her tight grasp. Olds examinants how her son grows from a little boy to a man, how she has to get ready to let him go, and how he finally has freedom. “My Son the Man” starts with an allusion, “Suddenly his shoulders get a lot wider” (1). The son has already physically matured. His physical change
She goes on to say at the end of the poem, "he looks at me / the way Houdini studied a box / to learn the way out"(14-16). She is scared that her unwillingness to embrace her son as maturity has made a movement in their relationship; she is worried about the possibility that that he now holds the high ground where there was none already. If the son is effectively attempting to escape her she is no more the loving mother that dealt with him, possibly by herself, however only a part in his ploy. Olds convinced that her son developing into a man means that he will no longer want to spend time with her and that he will immediately want to run away from her as if he is an escape artist. Her son finally felt like he just won the game, “then smiled and let himself be manacled.” (16). When he “smiled”, he knew that he had found the way to freedom. She too knows there is nothing she can do to suppress him anymore. I can relate to this because my parents feel that once we escape the challenge that they set up for us, we are no longer want to have to rely on them and have their love because of the freedom we found. Overall, Sharon Olds’ poem “My Son the Man” depicts a mother-son relationship that neither deteriorates nor strengthens as he grows away from her. Olds used the allusion to Houdini is essential as in it sets up a correlation portraying the impressions of a mother who fears the maturing of her son to that of a magician who can free himself from any type of form of restraint. Her fear of letting him go overcomes the need to love her son more. She wishes to stop time and prevent him from maturing into a man. She feels confused and doleful that her son no longer needs a mother’s guidance in his