When the Hymans eventually settled in Vermont, Shirley continued to publish novels and short stories while caring for their children Laurence, Joanne, Sarah and Barry. Eventually her four children would come to their own brand of literary characters as fictionalized versions of themselves in their mother's short stories; In a series of the short stories, later collected in the books "Life Among the Savages" and "Raising Demons", she presented a fictionalized version of her marriage and the experience of raising four children. 