What is the nature of the mother-daughter relationship in "I Stand Here Ironing?"

The relationship of the speaker of this monologue with her daughter is one that is characterised by past hurts and regret. In particular, it is clear that the speaker feels real guilt about the decisions that she made during her eldest daughter's upbringing, seeing the problems that she faces now as being a direct consequence of her failures, as she sees them, as a parent. In particular, there is a real sense of missed opportunities. Note how the speaker at one point remembers how, when her daughter would call for her at night when she was upset by a dream, she would only call back. She only got up twice to sit with her, but that was then she had to get up anyway for her younger daughter:

Now when it is too late (as if she would let me hold and comfort her like I do the others) I get up and go to her at her moan or restless stirring. "Are you awake? Can I get you something?" And the answer is always the same: "No, I'm all right, go back to sleep Mother." 

It is interesting that the mother herself says it is "too late," as if now that she has made all of these mistakes, she is unable to try and go back and heal the damage in their relationship. The mother, as she stands there and irons, reflecting on her daughter and the mistakes she has made as a mother, therefore feels that in many ways she is responsible for the problems that her daughter faces. In particular, she feels tremendous regret at the way that she allowed herself to be persuaded to do various things to her daughter by other people, such as put her into a nursery school and put her into a convalescent home when she was ill, even though she recognised that these two places seemed to do her daughter more harm than good. The relationship between the narrator and her daughter is therefore very strained and difficult, but the mother feels massive guilt as she reflects on her failures as a mother. 

How do readers perceive the mother-daughter relationship in "I Stand Here Ironing"?

The significant title of this short story by Lillie Olsen points to the metaphor of the mother passing the iron back and forth as she gauges the past against the present and forms a pattern of her parenthood, the ups and downs of her attempts to meet the needs of her children and of herself.  Indeed, it is an examination devoid of romantic illusions, for she often questions herself in a reflective tone by asking such things as, "What in me demanded that goodness in her?" or she remarks, "I did not know then what I know now."

It is from the mother's stream-of-consciousness monologue the readers glean impressions of the mother-daughter relationship:

• As a mother of nineteen, Emily is "a miracle" to her, a wonder for a youth thrown into motherhood. To make matters worse, she is forced to leave Emily with a neighbor because she must work when her husband leaves them. It is obvious that the mother feels some guilt about this because Emily would "break into a clogged weeping that could not be comforted."
• Later, the mother is so impoverished that she is forced to leave Emily with the father's family until Emily is two. This separation is not wholesome:

Old enough for nursery school they said, ....the fatigue of the long day, and the lacerations of group life in the kinds of nurseries that are only parking places for children.  

• Here the mother indicates that the nursery was an unfriendly environment for Emily. Further, she states that she "knew the teacher that was evil." Then, too, Emily would always have a reason for staying home.
• The simple advice of the old man to smile more when she looks at Emily bespeaks of the pressure that the mother was under and the constraints made upon her affections because she had to work. And, the mother reflects that she only remembered to smile more at the children who came after Emily.
• The mother's abrupt question, "Where does it come from, that comedy?  There was none of it in her when she came back to me that second time...." [that she had to place Emily with the father's family] expresses her lack of understanding of Emily and their distance.
• When Emily would call to her for attention, the exhausted working mother failed to come, only sleepily telling the child, "You're all right, darling,k go to sleep...." With guilt, she admits, "...only twice, when I had to get up for Susan anyhow, I went in to sit with her."
• As the mother continues her interior monologue,she rues,

Now when it is too late (as if she could let me hold and comfort her like I do the others) I get up and go to her)

        and Emily tells her to go back to bed because she is "all right"

• And, yet, the mother is sensitive to her daughter, as indicated in her sardonic remark about the teachers who perceived her lack of glibness and quickness as an inability to learn,
• She reflects that she tried to compensate for her neglect by letting Emily stay home so that she could be with her sister.
• There is something of the outside world that the mother notices:  

She was too vulerable for that terrible world of youthful competition...of constant measuring of yourself against every other, of envy.

Repeatedly, the mother moves back and forth over the past as metaphorically connoted by ironing as she evaluates her mothering and measures it against the present. And, while the mother feels guilt that she neglected Emily at times, she recognizes in Emily a strength born of this lack of attention: "She will find her way."