Sharp Curves Ahead
There’s been a lot of attention lately given to men and women having children later in life. The focus has been largely biological: as we age, so too, of course, does our DNA. Hence all the wrinkles. The older the parents, the greater the chance of genetic disorders: Down’s Syndrome is the usual example. Recent evidence has shown some connection between autism and older fathers.
But these concerns deal only with the first nine months of a child’s life.
Earlier this fall, we had breakfast at The Cracker Barrel. Don’t ask me why. While we were waiting for a table, a couple in their 50s arrived with their one-year-old son in tow. It wasn’t that the father was disinterested, but he seemed not quite sure how to relate to his son. He looked much like I imagine I do with a drill. I know I should to do something, I’m just not sure what.
Watching his awkwardness, my mother-in-law told us about a couple she’d seen the previous weekend. They were also in their 50s, also with a one-year-old son, and were visiting St. Louis. The wife suggested they visit the zoo the next day. The husband frowned and asked, ‘Why?’
Not that such behavior is by any means limited to older fathers, and I’m certainly no fit candidate for Father of the Year. But fatherhood has a learning curve, and I think that curve is steeper the later a man has children.
I was married just after college, and became a father three years later. I was never really a bachelor, and didn’t have time to get used to doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and however I wanted. By the same token, my and my wife’s marriage never had its ‘bachelor’ phase. When Ian was born, it wasn’t difficult reconciling our lives with the sacrifices that needed to have been made.
Life with children is vastly different from life without, and I suspect the difference seems greater at 45 than it does at 25.
October 26th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
Some good points, Jared. I think it also depends, to a certain extent, over whether a person had children earlier in his life, and the current child has much older brothers and sisters. Sometimes, one of the couple wants a child later in life and the other isn’t as enthusiastic about it.