What are the risks of being an older father?

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230602-what-are-the-risks-of-being-an-older-father

by rntn • 3 years ago

59 63 3 years ago

betto• 3 years ago

Oh boy. Lack of energy.

I became a dad at 41. I’m fit, been working out at least 3x per week since my teen days, eat well etc… and damn between full time work and parental duties I’m half dead by the time I go to bed (and then the little gremlin won’t sleep well!).

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

pcurve• 3 years ago

Bless you for having the courage to go through with it at 40+ age. I admire you. That must've taken guts.

LeifCarrotson• 3 years ago

I became a Dad to a colicky kid at 28, and cannot confirm that it's easy.

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.

uncletammy• 3 years ago

As someone of a similar age, about to pull the figurative trigger, I really appreciate your anecdote.

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.

JamesSwift• 3 years ago

Yeah, easy answer. Not even close. Kids are already tough on your energy, and it just gets worse as you get older and add more kids.

wombatpm2• 3 years ago

Dying before your child reaches adulthood? Leaving a young family with diminished assets because your chronic medical conditions suck all the resources? Leaving your younger wife with the burden of raising a child in diapers while dealing with a husband in diapers? I imagine there are many more.

CPLX• 3 years ago

The first one maybe. But older people tend to have a LOT more money than younger people so not sure what you’re talking about there.

wombatpm2• 3 years ago

Dialysis 3 days a week runs 71k per month. Depending on you Medicare supplement plan that can you between 200 and 20000 a month. Older people may have more money, but the medical industrial complex will try and extract as much as possible.

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.

ubermonkey• 3 years ago

I have a friend who, at 59, just had another kid. He has grandchildren older than his new son, and is statistically unlikely to see him graduate from high school. That's heavy.

mitthrowaway2• 3 years ago

The life expectancy for a 59 year old man is 25 years and 6 months according to this source. [1]

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...

bee_rider2• 3 years ago

Obviously we all die and there’s no great time for it.

Having a parent die during college, while not as life altering as during childhood or teenage years, is still pretty disruptive, though.

paulryanrogers2• 3 years ago

What are the odds those 25 years will be healthy? Or will it be 10+ of those years with memory problems, walkers, dementia, or Alzheimer's?

sokoloff• 3 years ago

Male life expectancy at age 59 is 21 more years in the US per SSA. So, absent significantly worse than typical health, he’s not unlikely to see him graduate.

monero-xmr• 3 years ago

I know a guy through my gym who had one at 65. Very healthy guy. But he had a bad heart attack at 69 and now it’s pretty rough.

cortesoft• 3 years ago

I think your life expectancy calculation is making one of the common mistakes of looking at average lifespan and using that to determine the average time left for a 59 year old.

The average lifespan includes a lot of people who die before 59. For people who reach 59, the average lifespan is a lot greater.

dangoor• 3 years ago

For anyone unaware, this article seems like a good point to mention Harrison Ruffin Tyler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Ruffin_Tyler

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.

thsksbd• 3 years ago

Leaving a widow behind and not being able to give a live example of being a man in his prime

not_alexb2• 3 years ago

I grew up alongside boys raised by lesbians and they are some of the most well-rounded amazing men I've ever met.

rgbgraph• 3 years ago

* Well-rounded in the context of a specific sub-culture, and such

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.

tialaramex• 3 years ago

It appears that having two parents present is desirable, this presents two possible models of adulthood for the child to extrapolate from and of course it means both parents are less exhausted from caring for the child as they were sharing the work (to a greater or lesser extent). It seems unlikely that it's more crucial that the parents are of different genders than that, say, they have different temperaments, different academic backgrounds, or a dozen other variations.

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.

ghusto2• 3 years ago

No worse than the majority of dads then.

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.

speakfreely5• 3 years ago

With a fertility rate of 1.64 as of 2020, the US needs all the new babies they can get.

29athrowaway• 3 years ago

Why? By the time they can enter the workforce it will be all AI and robots.

vkou3• 3 years ago

No, it doesn't. What it needs is to figure out how to turn the colossal productivity gains automation gives us into keeping people fed, sheltered, and cared for.

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.

vwcx• 3 years ago

Amen. It's disappointing to think that the general consensus on tech/automation is that it's only there to drive an economy rather than what it could do for the baseline of "being human".

NoMoreNicksLeft• 3 years ago

Societies that don't have long-term replacement-level fertility are functionally extinct.

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.

lumb63• 3 years ago

what you have is a pyramid scheme.

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.

boppo1• 3 years ago

How did 2 happen? How do we fix it?

ChrisLTD• 3 years ago

There are plenty of young people in other countries that would be happy to move here.

iinnPP• 3 years ago

Until those countries start seeing the same problem and say no.

speakfreely5• 3 years ago

Your government seems to want to make that as difficult as possible to do legally.

bee_rider2• 3 years ago

Neglecting the point of whether or not we actually need population growth; being multicultural and allowing easy immigration is a defining feature of the US. Our population growth rate is whatever we want it to be.

speakfreely5• 3 years ago

Well, our current system very much depends on population growth. Our economic growth requires new consumers and our social programs require new workers who will pay into them. Sudden population shocks like the kind we're on track to experience in the 2030s and 2040s are going to be extremely difficult to deal with.

frontman1988• 3 years ago

The US is probably most antifragile to population decline given its history of being a land of immigrants.

wonderwonder3• 3 years ago

No worse than the risk of not having one. If you want a kid, have one. Enjoy the time you have with them and know that their life makes the world a better place.

janeway2• 3 years ago

It is highly likely that very old men like the one the article discusses, are likely to have accumulated potentially damaging somatic variants in DNA that will be passed onto their child.

User232• 3 years ago

No, it’s really not. The rate of increased birth defects for older fathers is quite small[1]. It’s advanced maternal age where you see the multiple orders of magnitude greater chance of serious problems.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17164268/

ASalazarMX• 3 years ago

Whoa, in this case, I'd put the well-being of the hypothetical kid(s) on the table, otherwise it would be an egoist decision.

wonderwonder3• 3 years ago

Even if you have kids at 70, there are good odds you'll be alive when they are 18. Provide for the kid, teach them right from wrong. Let them know they are loved and you have done better than every dead beat dad and sperm donor to single mothers out there. There is nothing egotistical about having kids, at any age and doing the best you can. Even if it's a decision based on ego, do the prior mentioned things and it's still a net positive for the world.

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.

User232• 3 years ago

The thing about having children is as soon as you do it’s not just about you anymore.

wonderwonder3• 3 years ago

I know, I have kids and it's awesome

bell-cot• 3 years ago

More medical risks (from miscarriage to genetic defects to ...) than they've even discovered yet.

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).

jawns• 3 years ago

My dad had me at age 55 and my brother at 56. He was receiving Social Security retirement benefits by the time I turned 9.

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.

Dudester230602• 3 years ago

If you think about it, your father was much more present than father of an average single-mother's child. And that seems to be getting mainstream.

HyperSane• 3 years ago

Honestly a man could act the exact same way if he had a child at 16.

throw74775• 3 years ago

My dad was 42 when he had me - exactly the same behavior.

pmontra• 3 years ago

My uncle had a son at 51. A few years later he told me that the kid was destroying him. I guess that no matter how much fit a 50 yo is, a 5 years old is fitter and it gets fitter by the day :-)

iamleppert• 3 years ago

My friend had parents in their 60’s when they adopted him. He spent his teenage years helping his mother care for his father. His memories of his father mostly consist of going to doctor’s appointments before he passed around his 16th birthday. Then, in his senior year of high school, his mother passed.

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.

mo_42• 3 years ago

Reading through the comments so far I got the impression that people don’t discuss biological or physiological issues that much.

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.

lousken• 3 years ago

My dad had me at his 60s. Now he's 90. I do not want to sound ungrateful - he gave me a lot and I am happy that he's still around, but I wish he was younger back then. We've never done some activities as a family, like travel abroad. And unfortunately in the last 5 years, he lost a lot of energy and he's starting to suffer with dementia, sleeping most of the time.

ghusto2• 3 years ago

As others have said, and is probably obvious; fitness.

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.

What are the risks of being an older father?

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