Why Has the Poet Brought in the Image of the Merry Children ‘Spilling Out of Their Homes’? - My Mother at Sixty-Six

The poet has brought in the image of the merry children ‘spilling out of their homes’ because this image helps to bring out the contrast between childhood and old age . While childhood is a period of care free merry making , old age is a period of death like sadness, with childhood, the journey of life begins, and with old age , the journey ends.

  The poet uses many images and contrasts, to present the age picture of her mother vividly . The poet’s mother was sitting beside her in a vehicle, when they were going to the airport. Her mother was dozing . The poet noticed that a pale,wan and corpse like face of her mother. She realized that her mother has grown old and is going to die soon. She became sad, she looked out of window.There she saw some children ‘spilling out of their homes’. And through this, the poet presant a contrast between the happiness of the children and the sadness of her own.