What are the risks of being an older father?
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I don't resent his decision to have children at that age, in and of itself. But what I do resent is that he had children at that age, but wasn't willing or able to make corresponding adjustments to his own life.
I never played catch with my dad. It wasn't his thing.
He rarely came to school events. They weren't his thing.
My childhood included constant reminders that he was too old to be doing X, and I should not expect him to live until the next major milestone, so I should just appreciate the time we have left and not push it. He ended up living until 95, so he was alive for a lot of milestones, like when I graduated high school and college, got married, and had children. But for the vast majority of my life, he was more like a grandfather than a father.
My advice to anyone who's thinking of having kids later in life: Be willing to keep up with the 30-something moms and dads out there. Do whatever you can to remain youthful in spirit. Throw out your retirement plans, because until the kids are out of the house, you are ON DUTY. And take some time to toss a ball around every once in a while.
But say you end up with Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s and need to be placed in a facility. That will easily run you 13k a month.
The MIC can keep you alive a lot longer than you can afford to pay for it.
And you cannot just give it away to family members, because there are claw back provisions. And they don’t care if you are trying to leave a college fund for you child.
He's a _grandson_ of John Tyler, who was President from 1841-1845 (born in 1790). Kind of remarkable when you combine longevity with having children in old age.
I had kids because I wanted to pass on my line as nature made me. Does that make me egotistical, maybe... Who cares? I love my kids, see them as both an extension of me, their own people and a positive I brought into the world.
He had no other siblings or close relatives and inherited his mother and father’s house, vacation property, cars, etc.
Fast forward about 15 years and he’s still living there. The house feels like an old person’s home. He isn’t well adjusted and while he’s financially secure, he’s unhappy and has trouble relating to others.
Statistics Canada says 20 years and 6 months for a 60-year old man. [2]
That said, I suppose some kids don't graduate from high school on time.
[1] https://coolconversion.com/heath/life-expectancy-calculator-...
[2] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=131001...
Having a parent die during college, while not as life altering as during childhood or teenage years, is still pretty disruptive, though.
The average lifespan includes a lot of people who die before 59. For people who reach 59, the average lifespan is a lot greater.
The flip side being, a father is not an absolute necessity, so long as there are adults with testosterone-correlated traits (actual; not stereotypical) in the life of the child.
This could be one of the mothers, or it could be male figures in other areas.
There are plenty of one parent families from which we can conclude that this is viable but not desirable, and not that many 3+ parent families from which we could decide whether e.g. seven is the ideal number of parents, all else being equal.
Joking aside, this is actually important. Boys have fewer and fewer role models in society, so having a dad around will make a difference.
I know it's not PC, but biology doesn't care about the current trend of pretending genetics and evolution aren't a thing.
I'm not in any related field. So my argument is based on high school biology: sperm-producing cells of an old man have divided many more times than of one in his twenties. And we know that more cell divisions mean more copying errors.
It’s not the first time that I see some empirical evidence about defects from older men. So we should take this seriously. The clock is ticking also for men.
Early parenthood also has issues as people aren’t necessarily well-developed in terms of personality or haven’t earned much money yet.
So, I feel like a sweet spot is somewhere in the late twenties.
Sometimes I think having children very early might be pretty good. In some European countries there’s a lot of help for students with children. The advantage is that these children will be going to school when the parents really start their career. I.e., the children are already somewhat independent.
Not having a large gap might also help to develop a better relationship with parents. Obviously a 60+ years old father will always just live in another world than his child.
I suppose being 10 or 15 years younger would help a lot in this regard.
I don’t regret anything though, what I lived in my twenties and thirties wouldn’t have been possible or much more difficult with kids.
My country is always near the top in life expectancy (84 or so) so if I’m lucky I’ll still get 40 years with my daughter
Easier, maybe, as each year I feel more tired - I'm not yet 41, and my triathlon and 5k times have been slowly dropping, but there was an enormous step function when my son was born.
I'd welcome more if you're up for it. Especially as it relates to family/personal life balance and the compromises you've had to make.
Thank the Almighty I get to work from home. Quit my amazing job just to stay home and work 100%
Trying to foster or adopt now.
I'm up at 430. Bed at 10.
The first six months are rough. After that it's just managing food, fun, naps.
Poorer odds that he'll be there (or be there in passable health) for each of the usual milestones in his kid's life.
Obvious "unable to support family, due to failing health/death" risks, unless he's seriously wealthy.
Upside - hopefully an older father has really gotten his act together, understands the world and kids better, and will have more free time to have quality interactions with his kid(s). And knows how to be up-front about that situation with his kid(s).
I worked my arse off to get in shape for my kid, so I would have the necessary energy it take to be a dad. I was never in shape even when I was young, so this wasn't easy.
I eat well and exercise everyday now, just to be able to keep up with her. You owe this to your kid.
If your society requires population growth to not grind to a screeching halt, what you have is a pyramid scheme. Either people aren't working enough[1], they are working on useless things[2], or someone at the top is siphoning too much wealth for themselves[3].
[1] Not the problem in the US.
[2] Half of the problem in the US.
[3] The other half of the problem in the US.
The civilization you belong to is effectively dying, and you're worried about whether you'll personally be comfortable as it all ends.
This has implications. Those who don't want it to die are best off severing whatever responsibility and connections they have to people like yourself. From their point of view, all resources are wasted on those who don't want to keep civilization alive. In a triage situation, such people won't get priority when it comes to being "fed, sheltered, and care for".
Your first counter-argument will probably be "well they're wrong". Which is irrelevant. They will continue to behave as if they're correct.
The same could be said about those people. They aren't aiming towards a steady state society, they are aiming towards tumor-like exponential growth, which will in the long-term, lead civilization to collapse.
The person who cut down the last tree on Easter Island, and all...
Civilization, and the state exists to serve people, not the other way around. There's a name for an ideology that reverses those priorities and obligations - and that name is fascism.
Yes, that is exactly what we have. Our social security and Medicare systems are nearing insolvency because they are Ponzi schemes that rely on growth. Growth that didn’t happen. That pyramid is built on either increased taxes for the next generation or decreased benefits for the prior.
Most Americans’ net worth is predominantly composed of their house. Those same houses have had their values propped up by decades of poor financial policy (interest rates trending to zero) because it is politically infeasible that housing prices go down. That pyramid is built on the backs of future generations who are or will be unable to afford housing.
Equities and bonds are also a pyramid scheme, in the sense that the same financial policy has propped up asset values. The rise of passive investing, the surplus of cash, and financial policy have propped up asset values far beyond their natural equilibrium point, because it is politically infeasible that stocks go down. That pyramid is built on the lack of future returns coming generations will experience because the prices must eventually regress toward the mean.
Not to mention the massive debt bubble, whose interest is another pyramid scheme, wherein past and present generations have voted and continue to vote to saddle future generations with debt that they will not be able to pay.
At least here in the US, almost every major wealth creation or preservation system is a pyramid scheme where future generations are on the bottom, and the current generations are at various higher levels of the pyramid.
“The United States is home to the highest number of immigrants in the world. An estimated 50.6 million people in the United States—a bit more than 15% of the total population of 331.4 million—were born in a foreign country.”
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigrati...