This page hosted by

BACKGROUND MUSIC NOT YOUR SCENE?
YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION TO TURN IT OFF RIGHT HERE!
(It's a generation-gap thing!

MY YOUNGEST CHILD, XENO, was born on my 68th birthday. 1 turned 79 recently, so there were 11 candles on Xeno's birthday cake. His brother Todd is a couple of years older. For me, it's like going backward in time because I was raising two boys of the same age 40 years ago, and they've made me a grandfather several times over. I feel blessed beyond measure. Am l too old for this? Not if you judge by the results.Both boys are smart, happy, and consIderate. They excel in school. Todd is way beyond his peers in mathematics, and both boys regularly beat me at chess. Xeno, like his ancient namesake, endlessly invents metaphysical puzzles, and he knows more astronomy than I do. For Christmas, all he wanted was a subscription to National Geographic. His teachers say that he Is always smiling. If these things are not a measure of parental success, what is? People assume, of course, that I am their grandfather. Airlines allow them to fly with me at the senior rate that extends to accompanying grandchildren. Waitresses ask how my grandchildren are today, and I respond that they're in college and doing fine. Remember Harold Ickes? He was Franklin D. Roosevelt's Secretary of the Interior. Now there's another Harold Ickes, son of the former, who was President Clinton's deputy chief of staff, and who, like Xeno, came into the world when his father was in his 60s.I run across this sort of thing fairly often nowadays. One such son of a late-life father told me that he always wondered, as a boy, why his friends' fathers all looked like his brothers. Why should this seem so strange? Older men do sometimes marry women of childbearing age and start families in late life. The development of in vitro fertilization has made it possible for older women to have children, too, revolutionlzing the way we think of parenthood and the way women think of themselves. They are discovering that their years of possible childbearing have now been expanded. Those who have taken advantage of this medical advance to become late-life mothers have attracted media attention and controversy. Aren't they too old? Isn't it unnatural? Such questions have no answers. Every medical advance challenges what is natural. Is it natural to wear glasses? To extend life by organ transplants? To use Viagra? The only question to ask concerning any parent is whether he or she will love, nourish, teach, and protect the child. Age has nothing to do with this, beyond concern that the child might become orphaned. This should be considered In the case of a single older parent, but in the presence of young, close relatives who would gladly fill the role of lovlng parent, that danger is mitigated. One thing I give my children, which many working parents cannot, is time. Their mother's full-time professional work often consumes her evenings and weekends. I never need to sandwich time with my kids between other responsibilities and pretend that such moments are "quality time." I am here every morning to make them breakfast, every afternoon to give them hugs and snacks when they tumble from the school bus, and every evening to tuck them Into bed and read them to sleep. My chlldren are my treasures, and my total Iove for them is their security. I do not, to be sure, play basketball with them. But, as they assure me, I score more points for always being on the sidelines. Richard Taylor is a philosopher and beekeeper who lives in an old farmhouse in !nterlaken, New York.. And thanks to JOHN GREEN, from Hattiesburg, Missippi, who provided the photograph of himself with his GRANDSON, Andrew, whom he has since adopted..

Reactions, Comments and suggestions to: robin_knight@bigfoot.com