Those Winter Sundays By Robert Hayden

He Knew Not Growing up children don’t see or understand all that parents do for them. From putting food on the table to fixing their bike when it breaks, kids think all these things kind of just happen for them. They don’t think of the process of taking time to plan meals, go to the grocery store, and then cook them.They just know it will always happen. They don’t know how early their parents get up in the morning to get ready for work so they can make sure their children have everything ready for school. These are only simple examples and obviously parents do much more, but it is not until children are older that they really understand all the work that goes on behind the scenes of being a parent. In the poem “Those Winter Sundays,” the author, Robert Hayden, conveys the emotion of guilt through word choice.

After recounting the things his father did, Hayden says, “No one ever thanked him” (5). With the tone of guilt in his voice he comes to the realization that he knew not what he was doing at the time. As a kid he really did not know what he should thank him for. All he knew was that things were always done. It wasn’t until he was without that privilege that he realized it was even a privilege. Hayden alludes to his father’s job as a hard labor job by describing him with “cracked hands that ached” (3). He understands now that his father was so much more than an angry man. His father was a hard worker not only at home, but also at his