Risks for older dads, but oh the rewards

By Philip Lerman

Editor's note: Philip Lerman is the author of "Dadditude: How a Real Man Became a Real Dad."

(CNN) -- You know, it's not like older fathers don't have enough to deal with.

We have to keep that smile on our faces when the school's reading adviser mistakes us for our son's grandfather.

We have to pretend not to notice how much more hair all the other dads have, how much younger their wives are and how much more well-equipped they are to coach the soccer team. That's because when they were kids, they actually played soccer, while we grew up with more '60s-like pursuits, such as baseball, stickball and smoking dope.

We have to listen to people saying we're too old to keep up with our own kids, and we have to deal with the fact that they're absolutely correct.

But on top of all that, every two years or so, we have to deal with another study saying that we're much more likely to produce children who have Asperger's syndrome, attention deficit disorder, bipolar disorder and every other mental illness this side of mogo on the go go. (And we have to deal with the fact that all of the fathers of our kids' friends are way too young to catch W.C. Fieldsreferences such as "mogo on the gogo.")

A report published this week in JAMA Psychiatry confirmed this trend. It is a huge study of data about 2.6 million Swedish-born children and reveals that a guy like me, who became a father at 45 (I was 46, actually), would be three or four times more likely to have a child with autism spectrum disorder.

But look.

When Max was born, they told me that because of my age, he was much more likely to have autism than, say, the child of a guy who hadn't had his first prostate exam yet. They ran me through all the other things that could go wrong, which gave me great pause. It's terrible, of course, to think that we older fathers are putting our children's health at risk.

Until you think about the alternative -- not having them at all. Then it gets tricky, doesn't it

Older fathers may be linked to autism

Max has so far managed to survive my dotage and reach the sixth grade. I'm writing quickly because I like to be done with work at 3:30, when he gets home from school, so we can play a little catch or pingpong or even kick around a soccer ball before he starts on his homework. The thought that I might have listened to the scolds who chastised me for daring to think about having a child in my advanced years -- the thought that this boy might not have come into my life -- is utterly beyond my comprehension.

I shudder to even think of Max never having been born -- and because I am a neurotic old Jew, I have to spit on the ground three times for even having written the words, like God will do whatever terrible things to us that we think or say, but then we spit three times he says, "Oh, well, that's much better then." Where did we come up with this stuff?

As it turns out, Max does suffer from some anxiety disorder issues. Did he inherit them from me? Were they caused by my creaky old decrepit sperm, as the studies suggest, or the cultural heritage that had him born to a father so neurotic that he made his son wear a football helmet to go on the swings? Or is it just one of those things?

I have no idea. But I do know this: He is lucky to have me for a dad.

He is lucky not despite my age but because of it. Because I am old enough to be done with the workplace striving that used to keep me in the office until way past what would have been his bedtime, had he existed then. Because I'm content to work from home, for a much lower salary, so that I can be here to have that catch. To play that game of pingpong. And to counsel him and console him and help him come up with strategies when the anxiety gets to be too great.

And yes, because I have worked all my life and am financially secure enough to get him the help that he needs -- to have him in a school that has responded incredibly well to his disorder. To find the best therapist in the world.

And most importantly, he is lucky because I am old enough to give my son what I could never have given him when I was younger: patience.

Older dads are more patient, I think, because we know we will probably never go through all this again. We know that these precious moments -- the bottles that gave way to sippy cups, the swings that gave way to skateboards, the Wiggles that gave way to Daft Punk -- these moments are golden gifts from God, and we understand that in a way that we never could have, in our salad days.

And so we cherish them, and we savor them, and we believe that spending that time down on the floor when they are little, and in the backyard while they are growing, and at the table talking when they need us to be at the table talking, makes all the difference in the world. All the difference in their world, and in our own.

Hey JAMA -- go study that for a change.

(Source: CNN)

작년 크리스마스를 어떻게 보냈는지 죽어도 생각이 안 나서 금년에는 대단한 건 아니더라도 뭔가는 해야 한다는 굳은 약속을 서로 했으나 이틀전에도 대단한 계획이 없어 결국엔 이브에 그나마 가까운 (2시간 반 운전) 아틀란타에 가기로 결정. 

지난 일년간 아틀란타엘 한달에 1-2번씩 다녀왔어도 급하게 점심/쇼핑 한 건씩만 하거나 아틀란타의 북동쪽에 있는 Duluth 한인타운에서 한국 장만 보거나 하면서 관광다운 관광도 못했었던 터, 떠나기 전에 좀 관광다운 관광 좀 해 보기로 했다.  

그래서 12월의 마지막 주 일정: 

24일: CNN 본부, World of Coca-Cola (아틀란타, 조지아)

25일: 성탄예배

26일: K의 차 보내기 (아틀란타, 조지아)

28-29일: 아틀란타 다운타운, Georgia Aquarium (아틀란타, 조지아)

예상보다 추웠던 크리스마스 이브, 우리 동네 일기예보만 확인하고 갔다가 얼어죽을 뻔. 2시간 반 거리가 기온 10도 이상 차이날 줄이야… ㅜㅡ

코카콜라 월드에선 아무래도 세계 음료의 무한 시식 코너가 가장 만족스러웠던 듯. 

동네에선 요란한 크리스마스 분위기를 못 누리다가 약간 쌀쌀한 바람에, 울긋불긋한 장식에 막판 holiday 분위기를 만끽하였으나 예상못했던 날씨 차이에 애 감기 걸릴까봐 조마조마. 

무조건 햇빛으로만 골라 다니느라 애썼다. 

(한달전부터 K나 나나 하지도 않는 윙크를 하려고 하는 건지 얜 기분만 좋았다 하면 눈을 껌뻑껌뻑 하는 이상행동을 보이기 시작함.)