12th child – Christopher – born to 73-year-old Charlie Chaplin (considered the oldest celebrity dad)
I recently read an article about older celebrity fathers: http://www.parentdish.ca/2014/03/14/fatherhood-celebrity-dads-50/#!slide=2483379.
The subject seems to repel and attract people with equal measure. As a new older dad, here are my thoughts about this:
On one hand, I chuckle quietly and say good for them. Finding love with a beautiful woman at any age is a blessing. On the other hand, I’m jealous that they have such beautiful wives—not that they have children.
Why should we be concerned about this group of actors using their wealth and fame to spread their seed(s)? Perhaps they have really good genes? They are certainly not the first males to use their wealth, power and prestige to father children with younger women. Increased longevity raises the possibility of older fathers. It’s inevitable and not really unusual.
The late actor Tony Randall, politician Jesse Helms and a slew of other celebrities have proven that male semen lasts as long as batteries in the Energizer Bunny. The fact that the article focuses on this particular group seems like titillation to us all. Sex sells. In this case, the topic surely appeals to both genders.
It amuses me to no end how we can congratulate older men on the fact that their sperm can still swim and, at the same time, look askance at older women who actually want to bear, adopt, and have children of their own. Hypocrisy is a smug, middle-aged male attribute. Frankly, I can’t be impressed and jealous at the same time.
My one and only true concern over all this bru-ha-ha is that the children know they are loved and cared for by their mother and father. There are some decent loving parents in this group. It would be a disservice to portray male actors/new older father as thinking with one head rather than another.
Frankly (and here’s the bottom line), I think most of them are out of their freaking, ever-loving minds. Kids exhaust, frustrate, intimidate, cost, annoy, refuse to listen, have temper tantrums, and make herding cats seem easy. And, the reality is that unless these men live long, long lives, many won’t be walking daughters and sons down the aisle or spoiling grandchildren. It’s also probably true that most of these men had no idea what they were getting into.
Congratulate them, mock them, do what you need to, but wish them well. If they can do it, then they will.
Isn’t that what they say about midlife mothers?