On biological clocks, risks, and rewards of older parenthood

In the last few weeks, we've talked variously about this study and that which have put older parenthood in some new light. Some of the studies are somewhat frightening, particularly those about the genetic risks that come with later pregnancies. Others have been more positive, including the study from Brian Powell et al noted earlier this month that found parents 35 and older were more likely to pass on cultural, economic and social resources to their children. So, what to do with all this information?

Here's what I think: Prospective older parents need to make an informed choice, balancing the potential social benefits that they pass along to their children by waiting against the genetic realities of getting older. After a certain age, a few years plus or minus around 40, biology begins to catch up with us. Studies have shown that it's harder for older couples to conceive, and the chance for miscarriage is also higher. The risk of certain genetic conditions is also higher for older parents, as oft-noted here. That said, though there is an increase, the chances that a child will be genetically "normal" are still higher than a genetically "abnormal," for lack of better terms. It's sad but true that there are inherent genetic risks in any pregnancy. But it's also true, I've heard time and again, that many feel they are more confident parents when they get older and better able to provide a stable home for their children and are more able to give them the kind of childhood they think they should have.

Of course, the decision to have a child is not always about that child, but what the parents want for themselves and their families. I've also noted testimony here from older first-time dads how having children has completely changed their lives for the better. That's true for me too. I've gotten more from my two kids these last six years than I think I've had from anything else in my life - more laughter, more tears, more understanding, and overall just a more meaningful and fulfilling life.

I'd like to hear what you think.

Parental involvement, day care and childhood behavior

Lots of media attention being focused today on newly released results from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development study, which found that "the more time children spent in center-based care before kindergarten, the more likely their sixth grade teachers were to report such problem behaviors as 'gets in many fights,' 'disobedient at school,' and 'argues a lot.'" Also noted is that kids in higher quality care before kindergarten had better vocabulary scores than did kids from lower-quality places.

Less attention is being given to the caveat the authors note, quoting here from an NIH release: "[T]he researchers cautioned that the increase in vocabulary and problem behaviors was small, and that parenting quality was a much more important predictor of child development than was type, quantity, or quality, of child care."

the way I see it, on average it looks like active, involved parents can help overcome the slight increases in bad behavior that may come from sending the little ones off to day care. This is good news to me, as I have one in daycare and one who just transitioned to kindergarten.

The new daddy workload

I noted back in October a major study that indicated fathers are much more active now in the roles they play in family life than they were a few decades ago. Today, the Washington Post picked up on the issue in a story with a headline that reads "Fathers Are No Longer Glued to Their Recliners" (It's actually a companion piece to a story about "Mommy Guilt," which has been their main story for a while today on their web site.)

To quote: [t]he total workloads of married mothers and fathers -- when paid work is added to child care and housework -- is roughly equal, at 65 hours a week for mothers and 64 hours for fathers.
"It's not the case that men are slugs," said William Doherty, a family studies professor at the University of Minnesota who has done several studies on fatherhood. "It's a new generation of fathers, and they are internalizing some of the very high expectations that mothers have."

One of the interviews they did was with an older dad, Chris Calhoun, 47:

"This is the best thing that's ever happened to me," Calhoun said, gazing toward his 4-year-old son, Evan. His daughter, who is 2, was at home in Bethesda with her mom.
To make more time for his children, Calhoun structures his workdays around them as much as possible -- heading to his corporate real estate job in Fair Lakes for business hours, then coming home for a family dinner and time with the children from 5 to 8 p.m.
Once his children are in bed, he works again -- from 8 to 11 p.m.

Do children get more from older parents?

I was talking in my last post about the gifts I felt I was able to give my children as an older parent. Now I've found a study published last year by sociologists who found a trend among older parents.

The study is titled Advancing Age, Advantaged Youth: Parental Age and the Transmission of Resources to Children. The authors found that parents 35 and older were more likely to pass on cultural, economic and social resources to their children. The study looked mostly at mothers but a supplemental analysis also found a similar effect corresponding to paternal age. The researchers were looking at such things as whether the children had taken musical or other cultural classes, if the parents had started saving for college, if they knew their children's friends and their parents, if they routinely do things with their children, and if they volunteer at school.

"What we found throughout this research is a remarkably consistent pattern that suggests that advancing age of mothers - and, as suggested by supplementary analyses, fathers - provides an advantage to youths," the authors conclude.

The authors caution against overreaching, that there may be areas not studied where younger parents would be better able to provide resources. One example they give is that it may be advantageous to have younger children in areas such as play, sports and other areas that require physical energy or stamina.

Thank you to Brian Powell of Indiana University, the lead author, who provided me with a reprint of the article. The abstract and citation are in the next comment.

"Today Show" weighs in on male biological clock issue

The Today Show's Dr. Nancy Snyderman did a piece Tuesday on the issue of the male biological clock, making the comparison that if a woman's biological clock is like Big Ben, then a male's clock is like a pocketwatch ticking away less noticed.

I was impressed that the devoted so much time to the issue, a total of about four minutes. (The video actually runs about five minutes, but some of it is unrelated talk about Regis' bypass surgery.) At the same time, I thought the piece had an odd feel to it. As I have noted here earlier, some people have argued that the male biological clock concept has been surpressed for political reasons. I have opined on these cyberpages that it has possibly been under-reported because so few men read preganancy/parenting publications. But as it has become more and more a mainstream story (can you get more mainstream than the Today Show?) I'm starting to see a repeated theme in the stories - a lot of them have a kind of bemused comeuppance tone to them. It's not like this is a boy-girl "Mad About You" storyline here - these are serious issues that women and men need to consider together as they get older but still want children. I mean, do we really need the David Bowie/Queen song "Under Pressure" overdubbed during the interview of the guy talking about his decision to wait?

anyway, here's the link (See under "Tuesday's video." if this gets outdated, I was also able to find it by searching for "biological clock" under the show's video search page): http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/12065856/

The best thing for my kids about being an older dad

Read as much about older parents as I do, and you'll soon see that one of the biggest reasons people are glad they waited to have kids is because their finances are in better shape in mid-career than they were when they were younger. That's true for my wife and me as well - while not exactly flush with cash, we can usually provide what we want our children to have.

But I find the money far less valuable than two other things I can provide at this age than I probably could have earlier - my time to share with them, and a stable home to grow up in.

I was still moving around a lot when the first round of my friends started having kids, I was 30 by the time I finished graduate school. After that, I moved around trying to establish my career. I never lived in a place more than a few years before moving on.

Five years ago I bought my first home, and it is, for the most part, the only home my son has known, and the only place my daughter has lived outside of the time she spent in the NICU. Des and I are planning at this point that our kids will spend the whole of thier childhoods in the pink house in Lewisville we call home.

It was much the same for me and my brother Scott, the two kids in my parents' second generation of children. The two of us lived in three different houses, but all within about two blocks of each other. I lived in the same house from when I was 5 until I went off to college.

It was a much different experience for my older siblings, all born in the 1940s. My parents moved from state to state and house to house - my sister once counted 11 different homes she lived in as a child. I think my brother and I got the better end of that deal.

Because we are more settled, my wife and I can spend much more time face-to-face with our kids, and I think that's the best gift a parent can give a child. The money helps ease things for us for sure, but I doubt it makes much difference in a child's life. Even though my parents had settled down, they still didn't have much, but it never seemed to matter to us. Having a place I can look back on and call my childhood home, now that matters a lot.

Joining the club...

Apparently you can be an older parent and still be considered hot. Grey's Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey, 41, and wife Jillian welcomed twin sons into the world last month. Mother and babies are reportedly doing fine. Also last month, Desperate Housewives star Marcia Cross, 44, and husband Tom Mahoney, 49, celebrated the birth of twin girls. Cross was put on precautionary bed rest but had an otherwise problem-free pregnancy, according to the celebrity press, and the baby girls are reported to be healthy.

"Heh, dee-dee"

Was this a milestone night for the Laney-bug? I don't know -- I'll report, you decide. It all happened at about 4:30 a.m. this morning. My wife had been up about a half hour earlier (we've gotten to the point where we both wake up now, so Des can give me a friendly reminder of how unfair it is that the baby always wants her whenever she doesn't sleep through the night. Why this conversation can't occur at 8 a.m. I have no idea.) The 10-month-old Laney-bug was about to get back to sleep when my son awoke with a bloody nose. In times of crisis, he also prefers my wife to me - sometimes it seems like I'm little more than a glorified playmate with a checking account who happens to know how to make cinnamon toast.

So I took over the business of getting baby back to sleep. She was babbling as usual about all things pppbbbpttt and ffffmmmttt, etc. It was during this noisy twilight interlude that Laney turns to me and says, clear as a bell, "Heh, dee-dee." Could it be? Did she just say "Hey, Daddy?" It sure sounded like it. She drifted off not long after that. For all I know, she was trying in her little limited-vocabulary way to say "Your hair looks even more ridiculous at 4 in the morning than it does during the day," but who knows? My son started saying "dada" at about seven months, which I took no small measure of pride in until I realized that in his world "dada" also referred to Mommy, the dog, and most of his favorite toys. But Laney does have some words going - she's gotten pretty good about saying dog ("daw") and just started "uh-oh," two words that go together often regarding our 11-year-old border-collie mix.

One less option for older parents

It goes almost without saying that as people grow older and their ability to conceive declines, other options can still fill their desire for a child, including adoption. But for many that may soon become more difficult.

We ran a story today about new restrictions on adoptions of children from China. The new restrictions prohibit, among other things, people who are over 50 from adopting. I for one can't figure out how they came up with 50 as the cut-off age. It seems to me that someone in their 50s in reasonably good health (which they should be, since physical conditions are another reason to be denied) then you would think they would be around long enough to raise the child into mature adulthood. Also, they are looking for parents with solid financials, which would also tend to favor older parents. And older parents understand what kind of commitment they are making as they adopt, presumably it's a decision they've made where they feel they have the love, time and resources to make good parents. I'm sure more older parents than ever are looking at adoption given the recent attention on the genetic risks involved in having a child of their own.

There are still other adoption alternatives out there. I know a few couples who have adopted from China, and they have said that the process there was more reliable than what they had heard about other countries. Hopefully some of that has changed in recent years.