The deep, personal material of the latter half of your life is your children. You can write about your parents when they're gone, but your children are still going to be here, and you're going to want them to come and visit you in the nursing home.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Munro suggests children are the central personal material of later life and notes a practical motivation for writing about them.
- In plain terms
- Your children are the main focus of your later years and you want them to visit when you are older.
- What can you take from it?
- Family relationships become the primary focus of creative material with age.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Who provides your deepest material as you age?
Another view
This view assumes a traditional family structure and caregiving dynamic.
More from Alice Munro
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Permalink to quote #12 That's something I think is growing on me as I get older: happy endings.
Permalink to quote #14 The stories are not autobiographical, but they're personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I've learned. Probably some things through observat…
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