Summary Of The Youngest Daughter By Cathy Song

In “The Youngest Daughter” by Cathy Song, Song reveals the codependent relationship between an aging mother and her daughter by characterizing the daughter as a begrudging but dutiful caretaker who longs for freedom, and the mother as a dependent woman in need of care, who feels entitled to it because of cultural standards.
The poem begins with the speaker, the daughter, describing how the sky “has been dark for many years,” giving the poem a dark and murky mood. She compares her own skin to her mothers, pale from the lack of sunlight, realizing that her body is beginning to change just as her mothers did as she grew old. The realization worries her, as she secretly longs for freedom from the chore of taking care of her aging mother. But

she cannot voice her fears, knowing that they seem selfish, as in many Asian cultures, it falls to the children, and especially to an unmarried daughter, to take care of their elderly parents. Besides, the daughter and mother depend on one another.
The second stanza discusses the migraines the daughter feels, and how her mother massages her face in the evening to alleviate them, though, ironically, the mother is implied to be the cause of these migraines.

However, in the mornings, the daughter bathes her mother, making her the caretaker. This role reversal shows that they are both dependent on one another, albeit the mother is more so than the daughter. While the mother is “in a good humor,” the daughter regards her mother’s “flaccid” and “whiskered” breasts with disdain, knowing someday she will age as her mother has, and yet all she has done in her life is sit in this dark house. Yet, she loves her mother too, as she is “almost tender” when bathing her. This characterization of the daughter as simultaneously loving her mother but also resenting her makes her dutifulness very complex. The mother seems to be happy with the arrangement of her daughter as a caretaker, but the daughter is obviously not. Song continues with the dark mood, mingling it with hopelessness, in the lines “it seems like it has always been like this: the two of us in this sunless room, the splashing of bathwater.” It has been just the two of them for so long, the daughter feels like she’s been in this mundane position for forever. The redundant tasks are boring her, and she longs for freedom from her mother and the dark

house.
In the last stanza, the mother “prepares a ritual of tea and rice,” and they eat in “familiar silence.” The words ritual and familiar are key, as it shows not only that the food preparation and eating are a predictable ritual, but that each day is essentially the same, adding to the mundane nature of the daughter’s life. The daughter finally expresses her intentions to leave, saying “even now planning my escape.” Even when she is in a familiar and comfortable place with her mom, a fresh-cooked meal in front of her, she longs to leave. The daughter raises a toast to her mother’s health, and as she does, “a thousand cranes curtain the window, fly[ing] up in a sudden breeze.” Cranes symbolize longevity, showing that the mother has much more life to live before the daughter will be able to make her escape, and fly away like the cranes in her window.
By characterizing the daughter as conflicted in her feelings of duty to her mother and her wishes for her own freedom, the author effectively manifests the complexity of her feelings of duty as a caretaker to her mother and her duty to herself to pursue her own endeavors.