Dangerous old dads

I've got a confession.My youngest child wasn't born until I was 71. Now she's a beautiful 4-year-old girl who displays intelligent curiosity regarding the world around her, plays voraciously with her cousins, and tells me she loves me at least once a day.In short, she's the blessing of my twilight years.Which is why I was dismayed by a recent headline in this newspaper. "Old fathers seen to create global genetic disaster," it screamed over a story compiled by Associated Press.The article recounted a presentation by Indian fertility specialist Dr. Ameet Patki at the Congress of the Asia Pacific Initiative on Reproduction some months ago in Manila. Because both men and women worldwide are increasingly delaying parenthood, Patki warned, they should know that "sperm DNA fragmentation" occurs in men "exponentially after the age of 40."In other words, it's not just women who harbor biological clocks.The potential results: various disorders in the offspring of older men, including schizophrenia, autism, and childhood cancers. The past 50 years, he said, have seen significant increases in all of those ailments, making it "imperative that clinicians advise couples where the man is aged 40 or more that there is an increased risk of adverse health outcomes in offspring, and potentially on future generations."Whoa, I thought, that's a lot to digest!To be honest, genetically ambushing future generations isn't something my Filipino wife and I considered in deciding to start a new family. Frankly, we were more concerned about whether the difference in our ages would sustain long-term emotional compatibility. "Don't worry about the age gap because it doesn't matter," she assured me on several occasions.Which, of course, was music to my aging hard-of-hearing ears.And so we got married with nary a thought regarding the long-term genetic consequences. Having already fathered two now-grown children in a previous marriage, producing another one was not high on my list of priorities. But Ivy was still young and fertile. And being Filipino, having babies was indeed a high priority for her. So we plunged right in and off to the races we went.Our first child, Isaac, was born in 2010, just two years into our marriage when Ivy was 28 and I was 61. Today he's a strapping, handsome young man of 13 who says he wants to be a fireman.The second child didn't come as easily. After experiencing two miscarriages, we put the whole thing on a back burner and left the outcome to God. Then, in 2020, He spoke with a screeching roar! And out came the long-awaited outcome: our sweet little baby Adira.I should probably have taken an early hint from a nurse's first greeting as I carried our newborn down a hospital hallway. "Oh," she crowed, "how beautiful! Is that your granddaughter?""Actually," I said, uncertain of whether to reply with pride or embarrassment, "I'm her father."And that's pretty much how it's gone ever since.As I said at the outset, Adira's life has been a blessing to mine. In fact, here's what I wrote after seeing her for the very first time: "Staring into that round little face with half-closed eyes the color of her mom's, I experienced the familiar moment of wonder I have felt with each of my four children... It's the closest I've ever come to eternity: that bittersweet moment of awe at the miracle of life itself, the wondrous ways God and nature embrace to create the unimaginable and renew it again and again."And now they're telling me it's all part of a global genetic disaster? I'm sorry, but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around that. Just to be safe and do my part, though, I sincerely promise to father no more children.At least not until I'm well into my eighties.* * *David Haldane is an award-winning American author, journalist, and broadcaster with homes in Joshua Tree, California, and Northern Mindanao, Philippines. His latest book is A Tooth in My Popsicle and Other Ebullient Essays on Becoming Filipino.