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Who really said it

I Had Six Theories About Bringing Up Children

Not Leonard Lyons — the joke is anonymous Unknown — the joke is anonymous In print by 1946 · no author has ever been identified
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

Quote Investigator ↗ finds no substantive link between this joke and any named author. Its earliest close match is a 1946 pamphlet, Parent Education Through Home and School, in which the Rev. James A. Magner quotes it as Lord Rochester’s — but John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester ↗ died in 1680, and QI notes it is “very unlikely that a joke Wilmot wrote or spoke before his death in 1680 was somehow hidden for 266 years and only emerged in 1946”. Leonard Lyons ↗ enters the record only in 1955, when Jacob M. Braude printed a three-children version crediting Lyons and sourcing it to Irving Hoffman of the Hollywood Reporter — nine years after the line was already in print. QI’s verdict: “Currently, the creator is anonymous.”

Last verified 11 Oct 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“I Had Six Theories About Bringing Up Children” Anonymous. Earliest documented printing: Rev. James A. Magner, "The Social Values of the Home", in Parent Education Through Home and School (Washington, D.C.: N.C.W.C. Family Life Bureau, 1946), 11 — where it is already credited, without evidence, to "Lord Rochester". Not John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647–1680), and not Leonard Lyons, who was credited only in 1955. A newspaper precursor ran in 1916. Quotle.info · Verbatim: “Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children. Now I have six children and no theories.”

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Leonard Lyons. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the themes of humility, wisdom and knowledge. Theme: "I Had Six Theories About Bringing Up Children". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "I Had Six Theories About Bringing Up Children". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The earliest printing anyone has found

Earliest close match
1946 — Rev. James A. Magner, “The Social Values of the Home”, quote page 11
In
Parent Education Through Home and School
Publisher
N.C.W.C. Family Life Bureau, Washington, D.C.
Attributed there to
“Lord Rochester” — with nothing connecting the line to John Wilmot (1647–1680)
Credited to Leonard Lyons
1955, in Jacob M. Braude’s compilation — a three-children variant, sourced to Irving Hoffman

“Before I got married,” wrote Lord Rochester, “I had six theories about bringing up children. Now I have six children—and no theories.” Rev. James A. Magner, Parent Education Through Home and School, 1946

This is the earliest close match Quote Investigator has located ↗, and note that the false attribution arrives already attached to it: the pamphlet presents the line as a 266-year-old quotation with no indication of where it found it. A precursor was circulating three decades earlier — a 1916 newspaper filler titled “What She Has”, credited to the Detroit Free Press, which ends with a mother admitting she has “no theories… Just three children.” QI calls the descent of the 1946 quip from that joke “conjectural”, and we do not assert it either.

Quote Investigator: I Had Six Theories About Bringing Up Children

How we verified this

  • Quote Investigator ↗ lays out dated citations running from 1904 to 1962 and concludes there is “no substantive support for ascribing the joke to John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester”. Its 1946 pamphlet citation was verified from scans with the help of librarians at Chestnut Hill College, and its November 1946 Oil Weekly citation — where the line is spoken by an unnamed “veteran in the marriage game”, with no Rochester anywhere — was verified from scans too.
  • Wikipedia’s article on John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester ↗ gives his dates as 1647–1680, an English poet and courtier of Charles II’s Restoration court. That is the arithmetic the attribution has to survive, and does not.
  • Wikipedia’s article on Leonard Lyons ↗ confirms him as an American newspaper columnist (1906–1976), known for the New York Post column “The Lyons Den”. He was a working columnist in 1955 when Braude’s compilation credited him — but the joke predates that credit by nine years, and Braude’s own entry points at Irving Hoffman, not Lyons.
  • The Internet Archive’s catalogue record for Evan Esar’s The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations ↗ confirms the 1949 edition in which, per QI, Esar printed the joke under the confident heading “ROCHESTER, Lord, 1647-1680, English poet” — lending the attribution a precision it never earned. The volume is lending-restricted, so we did not read the entry ourselves.

No author has ever been identified and the earliest known printing is a 1946 pamphlet from a religious publisher, so we can determine neither an authorship nor a renewal position and assert no rights status. This is emphatically not a claim that the text is public domain.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Two men get the credit; neither has a claim

A Restoration earl who died in 1680 and a mid-century gossip columnist. The joke belongs to neither.

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester Not Rochester

The 1946 pamphlet and a June 1947 Reader’s Digest “Quotable Quotes” entry both print it as his. QI ↗ finds no substantive linkage, and the gap is 266 years. It allows that some other Lord Rochester or John Wilmot might have used the line, but has found no evidence of one.

Leonard Lyons Predated by nine years

Jacob M. Braude’s 1955 Speaker’s Encyclopedia gives a three-children version as Lyons’s musing after the birth of his third son — and then sources the entry to Irving Hoffman of the Hollywood Reporter. The joke was already in print in 1946 ↗, so 1955 cannot be its origin.

The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations (1949) circular

Evan Esar did not just repeat the attribution, he dressed it: QI records ↗ his entry as “ROCHESTER, Lord, 1647-1680, English poet”. Birth and death dates make an attribution look researched, and later compilers copied it forward.

A 1946 Catholic family-life pamphlet earliest in print

Rev. James A. Magner’s section of Parent Education Through Home and School, quote page 11 — verified by QI from scans ↗. It carries the Rochester credit already, which is why the error is older than every compilation that repeats it.

No author has ever been identified. Quote Investigator ↗ traces the joke to 1946, finds a 1916 newspaper precursor, and concludes: “Currently, the creator is anonymous.”

Context

Why it mattered

The thought is older than the joke. In October 1904 the Chicago Daily Tribune reported an address to the Ravenswood Woman’s Club in which Mrs. John McLauchlan told the room that “six children can upset all the theories one ever dared to obtain”, adding that “humility comes with years of motherhood”. QI notes ↗ the resemblance but also that she was not reaching for a laugh.

By January 1916 it had become a gag, syndicated from the Detroit Free Press under the title “What She Has”: a man boasts of his “many splendid theories on the art of bringing up children”, and the woman replies that she has no theories — “just three children.” What 1946 added was compression into a single sentence, the six-and-six symmetry, and a famous dead poet’s name. That is roughly how most quotations acquire their authors.

“Six children can upset all the theories one ever dared to obtain.”

Read the full story

The variants matter because they show the line being worn smooth by use. November 1946’s Oil Weekly gives it to an unnamed “veteran in the marriage game” with no Rochester at all. A 1949 Kentucky New Era report has a Scout leader telling it about a father of six. Braude’s 1955 compilation drops to three children; so does the columnist Marjorie Mills in January 1962, who introduces it as “that oldie” — sixteen years after its first known printing, it was already folklore.

The pattern is the ordinary life of a joke: it is funny, it is short, and it has no owner, so each retelling attaches whatever name is nearest to hand. The 1946 pamphlet reached for a Restoration rake; 1955 reached for a gossip columnist who had just had a third son. Neither was reporting a source.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Humility Wisdom Knowledge

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: the full investigationquoteinvestigator.com

Dated citations from 1904 to 1962, with the 1946 and 1916 texts reproduced.
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochesteren.wikipedia.org

The Restoration poet (1647–1680) the joke is pinned on.
Leonard Lyonsen.wikipedia.org

The New York Post columnist credited in a 1955 compilation.
The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations (1949)archive.org

Evan Esar’s compilation, which gave the attribution its fake precision.

The author

About Leonard Lyons

Leonard Lyons

1906–1976 · American newspaper columnist · "The Lyons Den", New York Post

Leonard Lyons was an American newspaper columnist, best known for the New York Post column “The Lyons Den”. Like most gossip columnists of his era he traded in anecdotes and one-liners gathered from around town, which is exactly how a joke with no owner ends up under a byline: in 1955 Jacob M. Braude’s Speaker’s Encyclopedia printed a three-children version of this quip as Lyons’s own reflection after the birth of his third son — while sourcing the item to Irving Hoffman of the Hollywood Reporter. The joke had been in print since 1946.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The earliest documented printing (Chicago)

Rev. James A. Magner, “The Social Values of the Home”, in Parent Education Through Home and School (Washington, D.C.: N.C.W.C. Family Life Bureau, 1946), 11 — the earliest close match located by Quote Investigator, where the joke is already credited to “Lord Rochester”. The creator is anonymous.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I Had Six Theories About Bringing Up Children’?” Last verified 11 Oct 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-had-six-theories-about-bringing-up-children/

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