I wanted to check it out and it seems that it is true: old men are not dead men.
Adverse changes in semen quality with age have been reported but were slight (Nieschlag et al., 1982; Schwartz et al., 1983; Rolf et al., 1996). Neither sperm function in vitro (Haidl et al., 1996), nor the ability to fertilize donated oocytes (Gallardo et al., 1996) declined with age.Charlie Chaplin- fathered 8 children with Oona O'Neil, the youngest born when he was 74 (pic)
Anthony Quinn- fathered two children with his secretary (whom he later married) when he was 78 and 81
Saul Bellow- his youngest child was born when he was 85
Strom Thurmond- all four of his children were born when he was well over 60, the last when he was in his seventies
Clint Eastwood- his youngest child was born when he was in his late 60s
James Doohan ("Scotty" from STAR TREK) married a teenager when he was in his mid-fifties and had two sons, then had a daughter with her when he was 80 and his wife was in her 40s.
9 comments:
I've always felt that men who have children late in life are selfish egotistical bastards, trying to cheat the malach hamoves (who comes for them anyway). Then they kick off and their young children are left fatherless. The young women they marry love it because they know they will get the old guy's money real soon.
K
I believe the children are at a slightly higher risk for certain health problems, but not as high as one might expect.
Anon.
Very slight, to the point that it is not sure if it is the age of the father or other factors like autoselection of the elderly fahters. .
Don't forget Methuselah...
Don't forget Abraham and Sarah.
Anonymous said "young children are left fatherless". As one of those children, I'd rather be alive and fatherless than never born.
Wouldn't you rather have had a younger father who would have been around to raise you? What is the difference between an 85 yr old guy having kids and some ghetto dude that goes around knocking up the females? Neither one will stick around to take care of their kids (though Bellow at least left them provided for financially).
Kids benefit greatly from having 2 parents. The genius group ("Study of Exceptional Talent") that my daughter is enrolled in studies the demography of their geniuses. Guess where geniuses come from? You'll be shocked (not). Overwhelmingly from intact 2 parent families. Jewish and Asian and White families. From natural, not adopted children. From the whole looked down upon by the intelligentsia, "Father Knows Best" type of traditional families. Not from single parent homes, not from children born of surrogates, not from homes with 2 mommies, not from any of this post-modern crap. The problem is that (in the US and Europe)fewer and fewer children are being born into these kind of stable family structures. For all of recorded history the family with a mommy and a daddy (OK, sometimes a few wives and 1 husband) has been the basis for raising children and in 1 generation we thought we could repeal gravity and anything can go. Guess what, it can't.
K
The ideal is the stable biological parents family. But we should not reject the less than ideal, especially when the old father is rich or there is a traditional extended family of uncles and aunts and cousins.
Euro-originated peoples are now so way below replacement that we cannot afford to "look a gift horse in the mouth".
You are right, K, but we should welcome anyone who is moderately well-adjusted.
Anon.
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