The voices of the speakers in the poems Mother to Son and Motto are significantly from one another. The poem, Mother to Son expresses the struggles and obstacles a mother had to face and overcome in order to establish the life she had for herself and her son. She wants her son to continue to push past the barriers that may try to suppress him by saying, “Don’t you set down on those steps”(15). Hence there is a very encouraging tone in which the mother addresses that life had not been easy for her, nor will it be easy for her son, but he needs to overcome the difficulties and never second-guess himself. However, Motto seems to be much more nonchalant. It seems as if the narrator is saying to just go with the flow. The narrator is essentially saying you only get to live one life so live it to the fullest. The narrator doesn’t seem to ponder too much on the struggles and hardships like the narrator in the poem Mother To Son. There distinct perspectives on life can definitely be a potential reason for tension between the speakers of both poems.