"Children are so creative and imaginative that they just bring you to life all over again"
About this Quote
Children don’t just “inspire” adults; they hijack adult reality and repaint it in brighter colors. Moira Kelly’s line lands because it frames kids less as dependents and more as a kind of emotional defibrillator: they jolt you back into sensation. The phrasing “bring you to life all over again” isn’t cute sentiment so much as a confession about what adulthood does to people. You don’t die, exactly; you calcify. Routine, work, and self-editing slowly sand down the parts of you that used to play, risk, and invent. Kids, with their unlicensed imagination, expose that flattening by contrast.
Kelly’s intent reads as affectionate, but the subtext is sharper: adult vitality is often borrowed. Children “bring you” back, implying the adult can’t fully access that state alone. There’s a gentle dependence embedded here, a recognition that caretaking isn’t only sacrifice; it’s also a pipeline to wonder, silliness, and the permission to be moved by small things again.
As an actress, Kelly is speaking from a profession built on make-believe and emotional recall. Performers spend their lives trying to stay porous to feeling without becoming naive, to inhabit a role the way a child inhabits a game. In that context, children aren’t just personally rejuvenating; they’re a cultural reminder that imagination isn’t a luxury product. It’s a survival tool, a way to keep the world from turning into mere logistics.
Kelly’s intent reads as affectionate, but the subtext is sharper: adult vitality is often borrowed. Children “bring you” back, implying the adult can’t fully access that state alone. There’s a gentle dependence embedded here, a recognition that caretaking isn’t only sacrifice; it’s also a pipeline to wonder, silliness, and the permission to be moved by small things again.
As an actress, Kelly is speaking from a profession built on make-believe and emotional recall. Performers spend their lives trying to stay porous to feeling without becoming naive, to inhabit a role the way a child inhabits a game. In that context, children aren’t just personally rejuvenating; they’re a cultural reminder that imagination isn’t a luxury product. It’s a survival tool, a way to keep the world from turning into mere logistics.
Quote Details
| Topic | Parenting |
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