"I stand here ironing" half interpretation, half book report

I Stand Here Ironing <Tab/>"I stand here ironing and what you have asked me moves tormented back and forth with the iron" (McQuade 73). "She was a beautiful baby. You did not know all those years she was thought homely, or see her poring over her baby pictures, making me tell her over and over how beautiful she had been- and would be, I would tell her- and was now, to …

…She was sent to a convalescent home in the country; every time that her parents visited, she looked no better than the time before. She was so thin after her parents got her released from the convalescent home after eight months. "She fretted about her appearance, thin dark and foreign looking at a time when every little girl was supposed to look or thought she should look a cubby blond replica of Shirley temple" (McQuade 75).