A poem, written in 1959, filled with a deep-seated sadness about the loss of youth making way for the tedious routine of adult life – seen from the outsider’s perspective of Larkin, who was never a father. This is an example of the poet’s pessimism and cynical eye that typifies his rather negative and perhaps misogynistic outlook on life. Humans are varied, and for some the move to suburbs and away from pre-war city slums and post-war bomb sites was an improvement in life. Also, the apparent loss of romance in marriage and the raising of families would have been different for each couple, This poem is very much Larkin’s perception. Most importantly, Larkin views child-raising negatively, while for many women motherhood was, and still is, fulfilling.

Critic Steve Clark considers that Larkin mythologised the past, which he saw as a distant image much like the set of a play – a fiction to play with. He believed that Larkin intended to invent a tradition to fend off the infiltration of American Modernism, and sought an imaginary time when the world was the way he wanted it to be.

Structure
The poem comprises three eight-lined stanzas. There is no rhyme scheme and the line lengths are short. The effect is spare and concise, suitable for a poem about pared down emotions and the loss of romance.
There is a single, flowing sentence – moving from detail to detail like a photograph. It’s like Larkin is trying to preserve a particular moment before it changes. The rhythm is slow and there is only one rhyme per stanza, making the poem seem as unhurried and relaxed as the time Larkin is describing.

Language and Imagery
The voice is that of a third person narrator, almost certainly the poet. The tone is subdued and pessimistic, creating a mood of lost happiness and lost romance.

Through the use of symbolic objects — a wedding photo album, a swing and sandpit, washing on lines etc — Larkin conveys the loss of romance that, in his view, characterises life once the excitement of marriage has faded.

See motherhood and feminism.