 Kerryn Goldsworthy writes that almost all of Garner's fiction addresses "the relationship between sexual behaviour and social organisation; the anarchic nature of desire and the orderly face of the institution of 'family'".In "The Children's Bach" this is played out through its exploration of what happens when an apparently stable and caring marriage is challenged by the introduction of external forces —through Elizabeth, Philip and Vicki— which result in a "clash of values".The novel gives "a sense that characters are redefining their perspectives instead of being depicted at a stage when they are already locked into a fixed way of seeing, and surviving in, the world".