afternoons

• context: Larkin's poetry celebrates the ordinary details of day to day life.
• structure: first stanza deals with Larkin's cynical view of marriage and deals with the idea that the young mothers are isolated. final stanza he focuses back to the children and how because of them the mothers are unable to live their own lives and are merely looking in
• "summer is fading" - 'summer' could represent happy times in life and verb 'fading' implies their happiness is coming to an end
• "to the side of their own lives" - the most important thing for mothers is their children. almost at the side now looking in on a new life that isn't theirs