The XX Factor: What women really think.

Older Dads Not So Hot?

Like E.J., I am interested in this news about older men. We're used to hearing about the downsides of being an older mom: It's harder to conceive; there's more risk to you and the fetus, etc. And as a woman in her early 30s, I can tell you that all the women I know have internalized the "you-better-have-babies-before-your-fertility-drops-at-35-notion." It's as if it's tattooed to our inner eyelid. But now we're finally beginning to hear more about what I've always intuitively believed must be true: It's not so great to be an older dad, either. This piece in the Independent has details about a comprehensive study of children of older dads, and the news isn't so hot. They are "more likely" to do "less well" on intelligence tests than the children of younger men. The children of older mothers, by contrast, are not. Meanwhile, as anyone who keeps an eye out for these studies knows, this study is hardly the first to suggest that being an older dad isn't so great. As the article puts it:

However, recent studies have linked paternal age with congenital problems such as neural tube defects and a range of medical disorders of later life, such as schizophrenia, dyslexia, bipolar disorder and autism.

Who knows how many of these studies are credible. But I'm interested in the cultural metabolism of them. In the late '90s, the culture got all frothed up about sending the message to "career women" that they couldn't have it all—they'd lost their chance to have babies by putting it off too long. I remember feeling there was a kind of meanness in the coverage, a "so there" quality. Who's betting the same thing will happen to men? Not me, I have to say. Or if it does, it'll be milder.