Having children is like having a bowling alley installed in your

In the words of Martin Mull: “Having children is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain.” At first, these words sound playful, even humorous, yet within them lies a profound truth about the nature of parenthood. Mull captures with vivid imagery the noise, chaos, and constant disruption that comes with raising the young. The bowling alley, with its endless clatter, echoes, and rolling thunder, becomes the symbol of the parent’s mind—once calm, now filled with the ceaseless activity of life entrusted to them.

The ancients would have understood this metaphor in their own way. To them, the household was not merely a shelter, but a living storm of energy, laughter, need, and demand. The children were not quiet statues but sparks of untamed fire, reshaping the destiny of the family with every cry and question. To have them was to surrender forever the silence of one’s own thoughts. Mull, with humor, reminds us that to be a parent is to accept the eternal sound of life reverberating within, like the crash of pins in a bowling alley that never closes.

History gives us many examples of parents who endured this very noise, not as distraction, but as the price of love. Consider Theodore Roosevelt, who raised six children in the White House. He often spoke of their chaos with affection, describing them racing through the halls, filling his days with wild laughter and endless clamor. The world saw Roosevelt as a soldier, a hunter, a president—but he himself admitted that the loudest and most demanding arena of his life was his home. Like Mull’s brain-bowling alley, it was relentless, noisy, but rich with vitality.

Yet beneath the humor lies something more heroic. The unceasing noise of children is also the sound of growth, of potential, of the future stirring. The strikes and crashes in the parent’s mind are not senseless clamor, but the rumblings of life itself, reshaping the parent into something stronger, more patient, more selfless. What feels like madness is in truth transformation, for in this noise, the soul learns to endure, to adapt, and to discover joy in the very chaos that once seemed overwhelming.

There is also a lesson in humility. Before children, one may imagine life ordered, thoughts neat, and peace constant. After children, such illusions shatter. The noise of the bowling alley teaches parents that control is partial at best, that life cannot be silenced or neatly contained. Instead, parents must learn to live with the rhythm of the clatter, finding meaning not in silence but in the music of chaos. This is no small task, but it is the essence of maturity.

The lesson is clear: to have children is to exchange the quiet of self for the storm of love. One must expect disruption, expect sleepless nights, expect the sound of rolling thunder in the brain where once there was calm. But within that storm is beauty: laughter, growth, and the unmeasurable joy of shaping another life. The bowling alley may overwhelm at times, but it also fills the soul with purpose.

Practical action lies before us: embrace the noise rather than resent it. When the chaos feels unbearable, remind yourself that it is the sound of life entrusted to you, fleeting and precious. Learn to laugh at the clatter, to rest where you can, and to accept that silence will one day return when the children are grown. Until then, let the noise remind you that love is alive in your home, and that the future is being forged in every crash and tumble.

Thus, Mull’s words, though wrapped in humor, carry ancient wisdom. The bowling alley in the brain is not a curse, but a gift—a reminder that raising children is noisy, demanding, even maddening, but also glorious. For in the midst of chaos lies the greatest calling of all: to love, to guide, and to rejoice in the thunderous music of life.