To A Daughter Leaving Home Analysis

“They grow up so fast,” such a cliche expression but yet with so much meaning behind it.Unless, one has seen a person from birth to adulthood, one may never understand what this truly means. Linda Pastan does an incredibly good job to portray what this quote means with her poem “To a Daughter Leaving Home” published in 1988. It is a short poem about a parent training their daughter to ride a bicycle in a park. Although, the whole idea seems so straightforward, it is actually an extended metaphor about life. The actual motive of the poem is to reveal the pride and heartache of a parent watching their daughter gain the first step of independence. The author does not convey the identity of the parent, but most agree that it is from a mother’s

In the beginning, Pastan describes how the mother was “loping along beside her as she wobbled away”(Lines 3-5) which could symbolize the stage of a toddler when it is a necessity to depend on a adult or even more in depth it can be a baby’s first step. When the mother realizes, the toddler stage is over, and sees the own child is growing , “her own mouth rounding in surprise when she pulled ahead down the curved path,”(Lines 7-10) as if the daughter completed an accomplishment without her mother’s help. She waited for “the thud of her crash.. while she grew smaller, more breakable with distance.”(Lines 12-17) which does not literally mean she grew smaller but in fact the mother was seeing her less often, and felt as she could not reach out to her daughter to help her in any way since she never saw her. Meanwhile the daughter was “pumping for her life, screaming with laughter.”(Lines 18-20) having the time of her life. And soon enough before the mother could even realize, the daughter is leaving for college and moving out, or getting married and she’ll leave home “like a handkerchief waving goodbye.”(Lines 23-24)
In conclusion, the whole poem does not necessarily talk about a daughter leaving home but it can be interpreted in any of these ways. Pastan still gives the readers the same message in all of them, that eventually a child will leave home, more sooner than later. She conveys this message using structure, symbolism, and diction throughout the whole poem. Although we may think the future is far from here, it is in fact right around the corner. So cherish the memories, because they’ll all be gone in a blink of an