The positives of being an older father

It was the struggle that dominated my early 30s. As my partner's desire to procreate became more and more intense, I became more and more intent on finding excuses to eek out another year or two of blissful childlessness.


So I pointed to our financial situation, our desire to get on the property ladder (this was back when you could get on the property ladder) and the age of our cat (old) as reasons for further procrastination.

Now this may sound like selfishness, or even immaturity, but new research has confirmed what I'm 100% sure I totally, instinctively knew at the time. The extra years I spent refusing to grow up were wasted in the service of my unborn children.

What the research actually says is that older dads may pass on a survival advantage to their offspring. This isn't in the wisdom of maturity, it's in the DNA of sperm. The children of older fathers tend to have longer telomeres than the children of younger dads. Telomeres protect chromosomes from damage, but shorten with the passage of time.

To put that more succinctly, the researchers think that children conceived by older dads may have a better chance of living to a ripe old age. You see, I knew that spending another year in bars would work out for the best.

Of course, once I judged the DNA of my sperm to be sufficiently mature, I succumbed. Today, at 42, I have two young children. This doesn't put me in the Charlie Chaplin league of decrepit fathers, but it does put me at least half a decade beyond the UK average.

And do my children get other advantages from having an older dad? You betcha! Andrew Watson, author of Down to Earth with a Bump: The Diary of a First Time Dad, says that older dads tend to have more control over their careers, which means they can spend more time with their kids.

I can relate to that. I'd be lying to say it was part of some grand plan, or that I'd reached the pinnacle of my ambition. It might be more honest to say that, by my late 30s, my career had hit a wall. It wasn't going backwards, but nor was it going forwards. I could have tried climbing over the wall, but the wall was constructed from the smooth, well-greased bricks of economic uncertainty and personal laziness. When my son was born, I rebranded failure as downsizing and headed for the park.

Had I been 28 I would still have been scrambling for position. Late night conference calls and lunch meetings with potential clients would have seemed far less pointless than they do today.


And taking of beer, the other advantage I have, as an older dad, is that by the time my son was born my social life was pretty moribund anyway. I didn't miss clubbing or gigging because I'd long since stopped doing them. By my late 30s I was content to sip the odd real ale in an old man's pub, and I still am.

The call of the club, or at least the gig, would have been strong in my early 30s. I also went travelling for eight months around that time, which makes me think a bit less bitterly about the decade or so I have still to endure (did I say endure? I mean, of course, enjoy) without a relaxing holiday.

Which all means I spend more time with my children than I would have done 10 years go, and I do so willingly. Nor have I simply swapped quantity for quality. Yes, a younger dad may have more energy. His spine may creak a little less. But he hasn't got a project.

This, I think, is the nub of it. By the time many men reach early middle age we've got as far in our careers as we're likely to go, our athletic powers are on the wane, and our youthful yearnings are gone. In other words, we're looking for a project.

For previous generations of dads who had their kids young, that meant growing vegetables, tinkering with classic cars or building scale models of famous sailing ships out of toothpicks. Because by that time their kids were teenagers, and didn't want to be seen dead with them.

But for us older dads, who reach the same stage with kids still young enough to like us, all the obsessive focus of the middle age male can be directed at family life.

Though I hate to compare my beautiful daughter with a metre-long Eiffel Tower one of my own dad's friends constructed out of Meccano, it's with the same sort of loving attention to detail that I interact with her.


Are you an older dad? What positives have you seen for you and your children?