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

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