Until he met his wife, Trumbo, a sports instructor, had spent time with kids and liked them but rarely thought of having any. Now he looks forward to teaching his son what he's taught so many others.
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None of this means there aren't advantages to the old-dad arrangement. A study released last June, for example, found that the sons of older men tend to have longer-than-average telomeres--the caps at the end of chromosomes. Over the course of a lifetime, telomeres tend to get shorter, causing the chromosomes to fray and leading the body to break down. The longer they are at the beginning of life, the more time you get. It's not clear why the kids get this telomeric bonus, but it's an advantage all the same.
Older dads may be better caregivers as well. Not only does the established middle-aged man have more time and money, but he may also be more nurturing. Testosterone levels drop by an average of 1% per year after a man reaches 30, making him less reactive and more patient. "Before, I was a ball of anxiety about things," says 49-year-old Conrad Fischer of Brooklyn, who has an 18-month-old from his second marriage and 16- and 17-year-olds from his first. "Even if it's your first time through, I still think it's easier because you're less tense about things."
That, actually, is true of both parents. Elizabeth Gregory, director of Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Houston and author of Ready: Why Women Are Embracing the New Later Motherhood, speaks of the rise of peer marriages, in which both partners have traveled, have completed their education and are professionally established. "The whole dynamic of task division has changed," she says. "They both feel more ready to stay at home."
Such domestic egalitarianism could, as science advances, become medical egalitarianism too. Just as women have submitted to all manner of physical and genetic exams to determine their fitness to have kids, so too may men one day soon. Malaspina is gathering molecular data to map corrupted genes on sperm. That may make it easier to screen before conception, as opposed to watching for problems after.
Senior fatherhood will never be the preferred state: sperm do become damaged; dads do die early. These concerns have never been news to women, for whom biology and society have always made every pregnancy a much higher-stakes affair. If moms are feeling a bit of satisfaction now that men are getting a taste of the same, they can hardly be blamed. And if fathers of a certain age are feeling an unfamiliar burden, well, welcome to the big leagues, old man.
FOR STORIES ON THE DOUBLE STANDARD OF INFERTILITY, A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BIOLOGICAL CLOCK AND FINANCIAL AND HEALTH TIPS FOR OLDER PARENTS, GO TO time.com/olderdads
With Reporting By Lucy Birmingham / Tokyo; Ruth Davis Konigsberg / Alice Park; Tara Thean; Felipe Cabrera / New York; Krista Mahr / New Delhi