Parenthood In Winter Sundays

In the three poems about parenthood in the eyes of children, they all share one common characteristic. They demonstrate the difference of attitude towards their parents as they get older all the while giving an insight to parenthood. The poems are be based around a reflection of their past and speak indirectly to their father in different tones. The authors address how hard parenthood for a father is and how they now understand the things their father had done for them. They later realize at an older age that everything that their father had done had both negative and positive effects as shown in the conversations between a child and their parent. One poem, in particular, has a tone that is obscure to the rest.

In the poem “My Papa’s Waltz,” by Theodore Roethke, he reminisces a happy memory with his father. “We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf” (5&6). In this line, the narrator and his father are dancing excitedly, which causes them to knock into some pans in the kitchen. They dance freely with no care and they had fun, but they also bump into things along the way, that is the relation of parenthood to the poem. “Then waltzed
It is not as joyful as Theodore Roethke’s memory in that he gives off anger in his actions. “Speaking indifferently to him who had driven out the cold...” (10&11). The narrator says that he spoke to his father in an apathetic tone. His father is the one who got up early on his spare time to spark a fire to keep his family warm, his father is the one who would wake them up and polish his shoes, yet his father is the one who would never receive gratefulness from anyone. “What did I know of love’s austere...” (13&14). Hayde writes that the narrator was too young to know the kind of harsh love that was directed to his father. As much as their is the good times in parenthood, Hayde portrays the