Monday Teeny Poll
By Glinda
Last week’s poll asking about the rising cost of inflation and how it affects your budget had two-thirds of respondents saying there was some sort negative impact. Wow, let’s hope that the Fed doesn’t cut interest rates this week, shall we?
Doing my usual “this poll has absolutely nothing to do with the last poll” type of thing, I’d like to talk about fathers for a minute. Kevin Costner recently fathered a child at age 52. Larry King was 66 when he had a son with his sixth wife, and then another a year later. Charlie Chaplain was 73, and Tony Randall was 77 when his last child was born.
Barring medical intervention, there is an age when carrying a child is no longer an option for a woman. Not so with men, who can father a child very late in life.
April 28th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Choice notwithstanding, at some point it becomes totally selfish to father a child only to leave them fatherless when the Grim Reaper (inevitably) comes knocking.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
I’m going to gently, politely disagree with that. The Grim Reaper comes knocking for all of us. My brother desperately wanted to get married and have children; the wife didn’t come along until he was 50, and he will be the best Dad (and his wife will also be Best Mom). He may not have long (*knocks wood* he’s fine, as far as we know); but he may have longer than a 22-year-old in Iraq, or a 34-year-old who’s driving on the same road as a teenager with a driver’s license and a cell phone.
There’s no way to tell. It doesn’t stop us from predicting, or from laying odds, but there’s really no way to tell.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I voted for “over sixty” simply because there is a poorly-understood but statistically proven link between the age of the father and deformities of newborns. They are thinking it’s more related to environmental pollutants than to genetic mutations, but nobody really knows.
Of course, I am not springy in the chicken department myself, but I am aware of the risks and prepared to raise a Down’s Syndrome child if that is how things turn out, as several of my friends have. Let me then amend it to: when you’re too old to physically look after a child to the age of 12.
April 28th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
I voted for “over sixty” as well. I have known more than one man in his early fifties who fathered a child and all have made good fathers.
(warning: long, rather confessional post)
My own father was three weeks shy of his 47th birthday when I was born. My mother was his second wife. I had a lot of advantages that my older siblings–23, 21, and 16 years older than me, respectively–didn’t have. When they were born, our father was just starting out in his career, working full time plus an extra weekend job and night classes to finish his business degree (i.e. he was never home).
By the time I came along, the financial worries of the past were over. Dad retired when I was 13, ferried me around to school and music lessons when I was in high school, and took me out to lunch on half-days. He’s 70 now, and his health is beginning to fail. Even though I will objectively have fewer years with my father than my older brother and sisters, in reality I have had a lot more time–real, one-on-one “quality time”–with Dad than they ever had, all because he was older and more established in his career and didn’t have to work a second job. My children may not get to know their grandfather, but I will be able to tell them plenty about him, stories my nieces and nephews will never hear because their parents’ strained relationship with Dad means that they rarely see him. Not everyone will have this experience, of course–many children born to younger parents will have good relationships with them, and I have no intention of waiting until I’m 36 (like my mother) to start a family, but there are many advantages for children of older parents (the downside being that I’m going to spend my 30s and 40s caring for kids and aging parents, rather than having the kids grown and gone before my parents are in their 80s).
April 28th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Any age is OK if one is able to provide for the child in the now and afterward. Leaving an improvished orphan to prove virility is not just selfish but is as irresponsible as the 15 year old that doesn’t wear a condom. The child is the issue. If the child is supported and cared for then there is no problem.
April 28th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
A hearty AMEN to JaneC, and many thanks for her “confessional” post which dovetails most nicely with the experience of the Annalucia and the Tedesco, who had their first four children between the ages of 26 and 35, and their fifth (surprise!) at the age of 45. The Tedesco is the loving and endlessly patient father, and the young Riccardino certainly gets much more individual time than did the tribe of elder siblings.
And Hola to LaBellaDonna – the Annalucia is pleased to hear that her brother’s late marriage was nonetheless worth the wait. Her own eldest son, though only 26, has not yet found the right lady and is already beginning to worry that there may be no such person for him. It is usually the young women who worry thus, no?
And in the end she did not vote on the “too old” question. It is a matter of temperament more than anything.
April 28th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
My husband and I met “later” in life. I was 36 when we married, 37 when we had our first and only perfect baby son, and my husband was 57. I am his second wife. He has two daughters who are slightly younger than I am . He said, when our son was born, that it was his chance to “do it right”–talking about parenting and being present in this little boy’s life. He missed so much of his girls’ lives, he told me once it was like he wasn’t even connected to them sometimes. He is a devoted, thoughtful, fun, kind and patient father to our son. I work full time outside the home and he is a full time dad. What a blessing! We are content with one child, but looking back, wish maybe we had had another right away. Siblings would have been that much more fun!
Cherish the time you have together. Everyday is a gift.