Headin' to the Orange Bowl

I love being a Dad more than anything else, but all parents need a break once in a while. My other passion is Wake Forest, and so for the next few days this blog will take a southward detour. After my Sunday night shift I'm climbing into a van for the drive to Miami for three days of Orange Bowl immersion. If you get the idea I'm doing this on the cheap, you're right. This is a trip I simply would not miss no matter how many pennies had to be pinched to pull it off. After all, this could be Wake's Woodstock - a defining moment in the life of the school where people like me will do whatever it takes just to be there and share some stories. I hope you'll come along.

Thank you

I hope y'all are having a wonderful holiday season. I just wanted to say thanks to all my readers and posters. It's been a rewarding first couple of months for me, and I'm looking forward to exploring more ideas in 2007.

Daddy G.

More than just gifts

I thought this was a great tip that came in a recent weekly newsletter I get from the people at Fathers.com : Ask your kids what they remember getting last year at Christmas. The idea is to remind them of the temporal nature of material gifts. My wife asked our son what he remembered last year, and I was surprised that the first thing he mentioned wasn't one of the higher-ticket items we got for him, but a slide whistle that allowed him to make silly sounds like the ones in Looney Tunes cartoons. If I recall, it cost $1.

The genetic risks of older parenthood in general and fatherhood in particular has come up several times on this blog. Now comes a story in the New York Times about some parents using preimplantation genetic diagnosis in the hopes of passing along their genetic diagnoses to their children so their kids will be "like them." It's a fascinating read.

Who does your kid remind you of...?

=
?
I just figured out this weekend that my six-year-old is hyperimaginitive, loves dinosaurs and outer space, and believes there is no greater form of entertainment than cartoon explosions a la Looney Tunes. Reminds me of another blond 6-year-old I can think of.

Congratulations to...

Matt Lauer, the Today Show co-anchor, and his wife, Annette Roque, on the birth of their third child, a boy they have named Thijs in honor of Roque's Dutch heritage. Lauer is 48. Try as I might, I cannot find out how old his wife is.

Quick-hit lit

I used to read a lot of fiction in my free time, but since the birth of my daughter, the only reading I seem to be able to get to has been Dr. Seuss. (And I was shocked to figure out last night that I'm the same age as the Grinch. "Why, for 43 years I've put up with it now...")

So I've recently gotten hooked on a site that serializes new works of fiction, www.fivechapters.com
You get one new section a day for five days, most of which can be read in those few rare moments of down time I manage to accumulate. I've enjoyed what I've read so far.

A warning though - it's not literature designed to be shared with the family. Some of the stories, including this week's, are for mature audiences only.

Okay, has anyone tried Red Bull or Vault?

I'm looking for something to give me more energy. I have to admit it, I just don't feel as rested this time around.

My daughter is not yet sleeping through the night, and for whatever reason it's been much harder than when my son was an infant. I freely admit that my wife, Desiree, is up more with the baby than I am. But I'm feeling more sleep-deprived than ever. Maybe it's because the sleep is interrupted every few hours on any given night. Or maybe it is the the fact that I'm six years older this time.

Tips for the weary gladly accepted...

A political scientist looks at male reproduction

A reader on an earlier post has brought to my attention this new book by Rutgers political scientist Cynthia Daniels, titled "Exposing Men: The Science and Politics of Male Reproduction."

I have sent an e-mail to Dr. Daniels to request an interview, but if you want to hear some of her comments on the book, click here to hear the audio or read a transcript of an interview she did on NPR's Living on Earth program.

Or you can read about the book here at the website of the book's publisher, Oxford University Press.

Touching column about an older dad's new book

I hope y'all had a chance to see Kim Underwood's column from the weekend, about Dennis Paul. Paul was 49 when his daughter was born, and has been thinking about his own mortality as she has grown up. In case you missed it, you can read it here.

Some numbers worth talking about

I got this interesting post on a subject I posted in September about the risks of advanced paternal age. I thought it was important enough that I would go ahead and create a new thread so people won't have to go to the archives to see it:

[from Anonymous]:

I would point out that 26.6 % of schizophrenia has been attributed to advanced paternal age in families where there is no prior known incidence of this condition. If you search advanced paternal age and schizophrenia you can find this throughout the world. I also would read James F. Crow's articel on Spontaneous Mutations, Is it a health risk?

A 10% risk of a genetic problem is big in my opinion.

My thoughts on this are in the next comment

Thoughts on a warm autumn day's stroll

I took advantage of a warm fall day yesterday to take my daughter for a stroll in the neighborhoods around her daycare during my lunch break. What a beautiful time it was, hearing the leaves crunch underneath the wheels and looking at all the beautiful colors in the trees.

At sixth months, she's really starting to babble, and I know her first words will come soon. I remember how excited I was when my son was about the same age and started calling me "Dada." It made me right proud at first, until I realized that he also called his mother, his bottle and most of his toys "Dada."

I had lunch with my mother earlier in the week. She was 42 when I was born and had lived through the depression as a child and young motherhood during World War II, long before I came along. And here I was with her little granddaughter, just getting some of her first glimpses of falling leaves. My mother was born 85 years before my daughter. That's just an amazing thing to me.

Autism update

Last month I linked to a story about reseach indicating that autism rates rise with the age of the father regardless of the age of the mother. Now comes research that found a link between autism and - of all things - time spent in front of the tube.

You can read the Cornell University study here.

Is your kid really special enough to get that scholarship?

I know alot of us are one day going to be faced with paying for college at the same time we're getting ready to retire. It's a financial double-whammy that makes lots of us nervous. And it probably should. A new report by AllianceBernstein Investments Inc., an asset-management firm in New York, found that parents don't adequately prepare for their children's college expenses and are overly confident in their abilities to turn talents into scholarships.

The report is titled:

WHY CAN'T JOHNNY AFFORD COLLEGE?
BECAUSE HIS PARENTS SPEND UNWISELY, DEPEND ON DEBT,
AND HAVE UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS FOR FINANCIAL AID

Ouch!

Happy half-birthday...

...to my daughter, Delaney, who turned six months old today. That means I've been an over-40 new dad for half a year now. It seems like both a long time ago and only yesterday that she was born. My wife, Desiree, had a very difficult pregnancy, and it has been a real blessing that we got through it and have had this wonderful new addition to our family. Now, if she would only sleep through the night...

Trends in spending time with kids

Here's an interesting read: One of today's most e-mailed stories from the New York Times is about a large study that looked at several years worth of data on the family workload. Among the trends - moms spend as much time with the kids now as the did 40 years ago despite more of the women being in the workforce. Also noted was gender equity in the workloads, with men and women both averaging about 65 hours per week.

Ads with older dads

you know your issue is going mainstream when even Madison Avenue notices. I saw a commercial last night where a man with a little grey in his hair is eating cereal and his wife walks in with a preganancy test. He then glances up a a family picture with him and a girl in a graduation gown. And then he grimaces with a "here we go again" look on his face. I guess he thought his child rearing days were over. At first I thought it was a commercial for the pregnancy test, but actually its for the cereal - promoting its health and energy benefits.

Study: Free-play time for kids undervalued

You may have heard some of the media reports about a study from the American Academy of Pediatrics which urges more unstructured play time for children. The full 32-page report is available on the American Academy of Pediatrics' web site and is worth reading. It is available here:

http://www.aap.org/pressroom/playFINAL.pdf


For those who don't have the time to read the full report or want to know what the study is all about, here is the abstract:

ABSTRACT. Play is essential to development as it contributes to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth. Play also offers an ideal opportunity for parents to engage fully with their children. Despite the benefits derived from play for both children and parents, time for free play has been markedly reduced for some children. This report addresses a variety of factors that have reduced play, including a hurried lifestyle, changes in family structure, and increased attention to academics and enrichment activities at the expense of recess or free child-centered play. This report offers guidelines on how pediatricians can advocate for children by helping families, school systems, and communities consider how best to ensure play is protected as they seek the balance in children’s lives to create the optimal developmental milieu.

The importance of just being there

I was very moved by an e-mail from Art P., from which I quote below:

You know, I suppose I am lucky because my father just died two years ago on his birthday at 82. But then, as he was a Neurosurgeon, I was never really a priority in his life due to the fact that there was always someone more important who needed their life to be saved. That's just the way it was growing up. He did apologize, however, for not being there for his family a week before he passed and I guess this comforts me, knowing that at least he was cognizant of what had happened during his life, but it seems little compensation to a lonely little boy. Would have rather had the time to get to know him better because, as it turns out, he was a very interesting man. But, if nothing else, my experience has certainly helped to set in stone my priorities for my own family. He told me that, "No one ever writes on their gravestone 'I wish I had spent more time at work.'" Something he learned from his Oncologist, far too late.

Over the last few years, I have looked back on the amount of time I have spent on my kids and sometimes wondered if it would have been in their best interest for me to focus more of my attention on getting ahead so that I could do a better job of providing for them. But Art is right. The time you give just being there for them, to talk to them and help them grow, is probably the best thing you can do for them. And I doubt my kids will ever say "Why didn't you spend less time with me?"

Homecoming

This weekend was my 20th college homecoming reunion, and I was struck - as I wandered past gatherings of people from my Class of '86 and a few years beyond - how many couples I saw with young children. I know technically they are old enough to be grandparents, but I got the impression that for many of them this was their first generation of children. In my group of about a dozen or so people, there were three of us - all in our early 40s - who had children within the last two years.

I asked one of them, my friend Fritz, who has a 16-month old son, to tell me what life is like for him now with a new child. Here is what he wrote:

"As for becoming a Dad, it's the single, most wonderful event in my entire life. I think about things that I've never thought about previously - where I live and how I live, and particularly how my career fits in with all of my other priorities. Saturday used to be a fairly routine work day for me, at least in the morning. It's now officially designated as 'family day' in the Smith household. When I'm around my son, I always seem to have his safety and happiness at the fore in all of my thoughts. I want to protect (but not necessarily isolate) him from all the bad in the world, teach him to avoid the mistakes I've made, and with my wife's help, create a warm and loving environment for him to grow up in. I love my wife, my parents, my brother and sister and their families dearly, but the love that I have for my son is somehow stronger. It's unconditional, at least for now, and I hope it never changes."

Elvis Costello and wife, Diana Krall, expecting twins

I have been a fan of musician Elvis Costello since the early 1980's, so I was happy to hear he will be joining the ranks of older dads. Costello, 52, and wife Diana Krall, 41, also a talented musician, are expecting twins in December. Costello has a son, Matthew, from a previous marriage.

On the radio - Older Fathers and Reproductive Risks

Earlier this week, Diane Rehm did a very thorough and informative show about older dads, which you can find here: http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/06/09/26.php#12040

For many of us, it's been a difficult summer of bad news about the decision to wait to have children. The first wave of news came in July with reports on a study from the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology that found miscarriage rates rise with the age of the father, regardless of the age of the mother. Then other reports about health risks to the baby, such as the autism link I have posted below, began to come out.

Take heart: The important context comes near the end of Rehm's show, where one of her guests estimated that more than 90 percent of babies born to older couples are normal.

You are not alone - some stats about older dads

Because, of course, all guys like stats, here are some numbers from the Centers for Disease Control that reflect the trend toward older dads. According to the CDC's most recent data, between 1980 and 2003 the number of live births per 1,000 men decreased in males between 15 and 29. But the birth rate increased for that time period for almost all age categories 30 and over. For men 40 to 44 years old, the number of live births per 1,000 men increased from 17.1 to 23.4. For men 45 to 49, the number of births increased from 6.1 to 7.6. For men 50 to 54 years, the number increased from 2.2 to 2.5. The only category where there wasn't an increase was men 55 and older, which stated the same: 0.3 births per 1,000 men.

Of course, there is a parallel trend for women. As the CDC notes:

"Births to older women continue to increase. From 2003 to 2004, the birth rate for women aged 30–34 years increased slightly (less than 1 percent) while the rate for women aged 35–39 years rose by 4 percent. The birth rate for women 40–44 years increased 3 percent, to 9.0, and the rate for women aged 45–49 years increased in 2004 to 0.6 births per 1,000 women."

You can read the CDC's 2004 report on births here.

Finally, something the kids can agree on

Emily Bazelon of Slate summarizes three new books about homework and determines it's a waste of time for elementary- school students.

Best/worst things about being an older dad...

Best: I'm more financially secure than I've ever been so I can provide the basics for my children. And when college expenses start to hit, at least I'll be eligible for senior citizen discounts at restaurants.

Worst: The grandparents thing. I never got to meet either of my grandfathers, they were both dead before I was born. And my kids will never meet my father. I'm thankful for the good health of my mother, a truly "great" grandmother.

Good news for the lady in your life?: 40+ mothers are healthier

If you read through this study, you'll see that the researchers found that women who have a child after they turn 40 experience better health later in life than those who started younger. They say it may not be that having a child late in life makes you healthier, but that the women who had kids later were in good enough health to have a child.

From the headlines: Autism risk increases with advancing paternal age

Click here for an article on Autism

Want to know about MY dad? Here's a column I wrote in 2004

THE FATHER IN MY HEART
PAT GARBER

A few weeks ago, I found a picture of my Dad that I had never seen.
It has quickly earned a special place in my heart.
I don't value it for the quality of the photograph. It's far too overexposed for that. There's so much light coming into the camera lens that most of the details have been completely washed out. My father's face is almost completely lost in a bright flash of white that almost overtakes the whole frame.
But there's enough detail to show that he has his arms wrapped around me and my brother Scott as we stare, blank-faced, into the camera, as we pose by a tree.
The picture was taken near the home where we lived, on the corner of West End Boulevard and Jarvis Street, in August 1964. I was 14 months old, my brother was 2, and my father was 46.
Eight years after that grainy black-and-white photo was taken, my father died.
I have few photographs of my Dad. I like this one the best because it's the only one that I know of that shows the loving bond between him and me.
I know that bond was there, nurtured over countless trips to Tanglewood and the Nature Science Center that was once in Reynolda Village. My Dad, my brother and I did many things together, and I considered him my best friend.
If we had known he would be gone when I was just 9, I'm sure more pictures would have been taken. As it was, Dad was our family's photographer. He's in precious few of the family photographs that fill several freezer bags at my mother's house.
He was usually behind the lens, preferring to snap the picture instead of appearing in it. I still have the camera, part of the Kodak Retina Series of cameras, that he used in the last years of his life.
I'll be darned if I know how to use it. But I often wonder, as I look through its viewfinder, if we compose the world in the same way - as if I could look into this vastly changed world and somehow figure out some kind of universal truth that the two of us could see together that could be captured forever on film.
I'll never really know.
It's part of the mystery of losing a parent at such a young age.
Just as you could look at the picture and wonder about the ghostlike features that the sun erased 40 years ago, I can trace my life through time and wonder how things would have been different had my father been there for me beyond the nine years we spent together.
But I'll never really know.
I am a father, too. My son, Sean, is 3. Already, the pictures I have of the two of us could fill a freezer bag.