By looking at the author’s word choices, we can see the ambiguity in the message conveyed; this is important because what seems to be a loving poem to some, becomes a harsh one about abuse. In each stanza there is a word, or phrase that can have a negative double meaning, and it is through the reader’s experiences and the way they read the other lines that determines if the message they receive is a positive one. Many previous notions of what it means to be a bad parent, as well as the different social norms o f the time must be taken into account when reading the poem, as modern ideas will change the intended meaning of the author.

In the opening line of the first stanza, the father has whisky on his breath. For many people the idea of a father who drinks is a dangerous thing to do. The notion has a strong connection to abuse as well as abandonment, as many parents who begin habitual drinking tend to lose their temper and become more aggressive. The third line mentions the son holding on for his life, which can convey the idea that the son might be in an unsafe situation. Yet the son ends the stanza calling it waltzing, even though it is not easy. From the perspective of a person being from the same time as the author, early 1900s, as well as for me, a father drinking alcohol is not necessarily an unsafe thing. People have sometimes taken the strength of the father’s breath to mean that he was fully drunk. The father’s drunkenness is also why the waltzing was so difficult as well as that the son said he was “dizzy” from the fumes. As it was in the 1900s and now, parents drink alcohol often. While the father’s breath smelled strong of liquor, the notion that because it made the son dizzy was something dangerous is absurd. To any child the smell of a strong type of liquor is dizzying as it is a smell that they are not used to. In fact, it is because the son gets dizzy that we can say that he is not used to the smell of alcohol, meaning that the father is not a drunkard but simply partaking in a rare drink after work.  

With the second stanza, the father and son have created some destruction as proved in the first two lines: “We romped until the pans slid from the shelf;”. True, this situation is not a particularly good one to repeat too often; it seemed as if the duo were enjoying themselves so much that they had not a care in the world. The mother’s lack of enjoyment at their actions has a similar feel to the image we see in sitcoms where the father and child do something that the mom does not approve of. While that mother is standing off to the side frowning, as she does in the poem, the others are having so much fun no matter how ‘dangerous’ it was. The bonding achieved from what the two were doing is too valuable to stop just because mom wants them to.

It is in the third, and fourth stanzas that we see a new side to the author’s dad. The fact that the father has a hand that “was battered on one knuckle;” sheds new light on what the father might be doing as a profession. The inclusion of “my right ear scraped a buckle.” also displays both the possible age and height of the author. Growing up in the early 1900s, manual labor was very common, and the amount of time laborers had to work to make decent money was still tremendous. The author also mentions “a palm caked hard by dirt” and that description along with the knuckle makes the father seem like a factory worker, or something close along those lines. This father probably has little time to spend with his son if he spends most of his time working. And given that the son is very short shows how young he must be, his age is emphasized by him having to go to bed shortly after beginning his waltz. 

The supposedly “harsher” aspects of the poem can be seen more clearly when the notions of drinking in todays times are perceived primarily as dangerous. There are people these days who have seen countless cases of aggression and injuries that came about from alcohol. It is from these accounts that lead some to believe that alcohol around a child is an irresponsible move. What would make it worse would be to bring in the father’s idea of dancing. Anyone who has ever seen a drunk person trying to walk knows that dancing is a difficult feat for that person to perform. Though the poem does not explicitly state that the father is drunk, the fact that the son was so affected by the fumes of the liquor that he became dizzy pushes that image despite my previous argument.

 So if, as the reader, you happen to take the father to be drunk in this scenario, it becomes a little bit frightening to read when a drunk man is spinning around wildly while he is with his son. Coupling that event with the sentence in the poem “But I hung on like death” makes the already nervous reader become even more anxious. The side of the poem that could display abuse is, again, related to one’s perspective. When someone “romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf.” it is not a very positive or safe environment. It gets worse when the hand holding the child is “battered”. Some believe that the battering came from beating the poor boy or the boy’s mother. What also worries people is that while the mother is clearly displeased with the activities, “my mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself.” She was never able to step in and stop what was going on. Perhaps it was due to her fear of her husband or that deep down inside she realized that she should let her family have a bonding moment during a rare moment of down time in a period of stress.

The level of ambiguity that comes from the word choice of Thomas Roethke is one that was carefully put into play. The haziness that surrounds the meaning of the poem has lead to debates on whether or not the son in the work is in danger or not. Both sides of the argument have evidence to back themselves with, but the true meaning will continue to lie with the historical values of the time that the poem was written. The weight of the story will always lie with the reader, as it is something that cannot be so easily swayed
