While the debate over the “ideal age” for fatherhood may go on endlessly, one fact is clear: the average age at which men in modern society become fathers has steadily increased in recent decades. Behind the polished statistics lie moving personal stories about what it means to embrace fatherhood at an age when youth is little more than a distant memory.
The mystery of loving what you have not yet seen is masterfully captured in The French Testament, an autobiographical novel by Andrei Makine. Its protagonist is enthralled by the charm of Russia, the only homeland he knows, bound to it through memories and blood ties. He is also captivated by Saranza, the town where his grandmother, Charlotte Lemonier—a Frenchwoman stranded by the rise of communism and prevented from returning home—has lived for decades.
Saranza, where the narrator and his sister spend their summers, sits frozen on the edge of the steppe, at a fork in dusty roads climbing between hills, green gardens, and fertile vineyards. It is a town that breathes the spirit of bygone times, with houses resembling Russian izbas, colorful women inhabiting the old dwellings, and the mysterious forest stretching out before the balcony—overrun with nettles, brambles, and unexploded mines from the Second World War.
And then there is the “Cucuska,” the train that passes at dusk along tracks swallowed by dandelions. To the children’s imagination, its soot-blackened engine might be headed to lands never marked on maps, to snow-covered mountains, or to secret seas lit by lanterns shining as vividly as the pale stars above.
It is the perfect backdrop for days that seem to repeat themselves endlessly, yet in which their grandmother weaves into the children’s memory and soul another language, melodious in sound, and a lasting graft of French culture. On the flower-filled balcony, by the glow of a shaded lamp and beside a chest of French newspapers, from story to story, Charlotte’s homeland takes shape—alive yet distant, like an Atlantis rising out of the waves.
And yet, words sometimes evoke foreign realities that no amount of explanation can fully unravel. French villages can only be imagined as rows of Russian izbas, and the freedom to agree or disagree with a sovereign remains an idea hard to digest. Some words fail even to summon the faintest image of the realities they describe. Such is the case with partridges and ortolans stuffed with truffles—dishes served at a banquet in Cherbourg honoring Tsar Nicholas’s visit.
And still, their very sound sparks in children a springlike vision, infused with the smell of mist and seaweed, pierced by the cries of seagulls. It is a world that irresistibly draws the children in, a world they long to share with others—though to do so they must invent a language of their own, one in which they know only two words so far: partridges and ortolans.
There comes a time when men—usually later than women—begin to feel that days which resemble one another no longer suffice, that careers and daily preoccupations no longer deliver the satisfaction they once did, and that the reassuring chime of youth threatens to fade, despite the hollow promises that it would last half a lifetime.
It is a time when parenthood takes on more alluring shades than ever before, when the struggles of early professional and family life have become memories, and stability and calm are the defining notes of a family life that feels both complete and yet somehow lacking—an experience that only an entirely new language could capture. For how can one put into words the springlike freshness carried by the thought of a child, after life, feelings, vowels, and consonants have been shared between just two people for so long? And if we look at today’s parents through the frame of statistics, it becomes clear that in modern society, the experience of parenthood is often postponed—sometimes delayed so long that it slips beyond reach.
Postponed fatherhood
For decades, it was easy enough to tell a grandfather from a father. And if a mistake was made, it usually meant underestimating the parent’s age—sometimes because men had children so young that fathers looked more like older brothers. Today, the confusion has flipped: the gray-haired, wrinkled man beside a child is not always the grandfather who has aged well, but the father himself—whether he already has grown children and this is the youngest, or whether he entered fatherhood only once the glow of youth had begun to fade.
The average age at which men become fathers has risen. In the United States, it climbed from 27.4 years in 1972 to 30.9 in 2015, according to a Stanford University study that analyzed data from more than 168 million recorded births during that period. In just four decades, the percentage of fathers over 40 nearly doubled—from 4.1% to 8.9% of all annual births. A similar pattern emerged among fathers over 45 (from 1.5% to 2.9%) and over 50 (from 0.5% to 0.9%).
This steady increase in paternal age is not unique to the United States. Europe has also seen a marked rise in the number of older fathers. In 1993, 74% of newborns in England and Wales had fathers under 35, while only 25% had fathers aged 35 to 54. A decade later, just 60% of fathers were younger than 35, while the share of those aged 35 to 54 had risen to 40%.
In Germany, the rising age of men at first marriage—from 26.6 years in 1985 to 31.8 in 2002—brought with it an increase in the average age of married fathers, from 31.3 years in 1991 to 33.1 in 1999. In Italy, too, late fatherhood is no longer unusual: about 11% of newborns—roughly 386,000 children—have a father aged 40 or older.
While late fatherhood often goes hand in hand with delayed motherhood (sometimes pushed close to the threshold of menopause), the difference lies in the degree of awareness that accompanies the two experiences. From the moment a woman enters her thirties, she is bombarded with warnings about fertility and the risks associated with having children later in life. Men, by contrast, at nearly any age, tend to look toward their partners when deciding to have a child, convinced that all the answers lie in the female side of the genetic equation. Yet research, both older and more recent, makes clear that men, too, cannot postpone fatherhood indefinitely—at least not without facing a range of challenges and risks.
A clock that falls behind
The idea that not only women but also men have a biological clock—one that ticks more urgently after 30, even if most men don’t hear it—was popularised by urologist Harry Fisch, author of The Male Biological Clock. The book sparked debate, challenging the myth of uninterrupted male fertility, which Fisch describes as being as untouchable as a Hindu sacred cow.
Even so, the data calls for further investigation. As Dr. Larry Lipshultz points out, research on male infertility lags at least a decade behind research on female infertility. Lipshultz, however, rejects the metaphor of a male biological clock, arguing that it suggests a sense of finality. In reality, he says, “There’s just no consensus on when men should be considered of an advanced age reproductively.” Still, the concept has value, he concedes, because it highlights the impact of aging on male reproductive capacity.
The risks of delayed fatherhood follow a curve that looks like a hockey stick—“just as it is with women, but with men the stick is a lot longer,” says fertility specialist Paul Turek, noting that increased risk may appear at 40, 50, or even 60.
Sperm parameters begin to change as men enter their fifth decade of life, says Brian Levine, a specialist in infertility and reproductive endocrinology. He acknowledges, however, that medicine cannot answer the question, “How late is too late?” when it comes to male fertility. Instead of a straightforward answer, there is a tangled mix of factors influencing whether a healthy child is conceived and born, depending on the age and health of both parents.
While women’s reproductive capacity begins to decline around age 35, men experience a similar—though slower—decline after 40, according to a study of 2,000 couples conducted by French researchers. After controlling for a range of variables, including the partner’s age, British researchers found that men aged 45 and older took five times longer to conceive compared with men aged 25 or younger. This longer time to conception persisted even when researchers looked only at men whose partners were under 25.
Another study examining the link between paternal age and infertility found that difficulties conceiving were significantly higher in couples where the woman was 35–39 and the man was 40 or older. The researchers concluded that, just as 35 is considered a critical fertility threshold for women, 40 should be regarded as a key risk factor for infertility in men.
The impact of aging on the male reproductive system was also highlighted in a 2017 study focused on couples who underwent assisted reproductive technologies. In cases of in vitro fertilization (IVF), women aged 30 with partners between 30 and 35 had a 73% chance of conceiving and delivering a live baby. That success rate dropped to 46% when the same-aged women had partners aged 40 to 42. For women aged 35 to 40, the likelihood of a successful IVF outcome decreased in proportion to the man’s age—54% when their partners were 30 to 35, compared with 70% when the partners were under 30.
As early as 2004, researchers had already found that paternal age could reduce the chances of conception and live birth through IVF or gamete intrafallopian transfer. The study showed that each additional year of the father’s age was associated with a 5% increase in the risk of failing to achieve pregnancy.
Research has also shown that the risk of miscarriage rises with paternal age: it is 1.26 times higher for fathers over 35 compared with those under 35, and 1.6 times higher for fathers over 40 compared with men aged 25 to 29.
And the story doesn’t end once the father finally holds his newborn in his arms. While most babies are healthy, paternal age carries with it a measurable set of risks for the child’s health.
Navigating the risks of late fatherhood
Roughly 13% of premature births and 18% of gestational diabetes cases have been linked to advanced paternal age. Newborns with fathers aged 45 or older were found to have a 14% higher risk of being underweight at birth (weighing less than 2,500 grams), of requiring admission to a neonatal intensive care unit, and an 18% higher likelihood of experiencing seizures, compared with infants whose fathers were between 25 and 34 years old.
The connection between paternal age and the risk of genetic mutations that could be passed on to offspring was explored in a 2012 study[1] conducted in Iceland. Researchers discovered that for every additional year of a father’s life, two new de novo mutations—spontaneous genetic changes—accumulate in his DNA, potentially leading to serious consequences for a child’s development and health. The study reviewed earlier research linking de novo sperm mutations to an increased risk of conditions such as autism and schizophrenia in children. It also quantified these mutations for the first time, calculating that a 40-year-old man carries about 65 genetic mutations—more than twice as many as a 20-year-old father.
This research provided some of the first strong evidence explaining the rise in autism cases, says Fred Volkmar, director of the Child Study Center at the Yale School of Medicine. Other studies, including one published in JAMA Psychiatry, have also highlighted the association between paternal age and a higher risk of psychiatric conditions in children, including autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and ADHD.
Fathers aged 45 and older are more likely to have a child who dies before reaching adulthood due to congenital defects, according to a study conducted by Aarhus University in Denmark. Commenting on the findings, lead researcher Jin Liang Zhu noted that “the risks of older fatherhood can be very profound, and it is not something that people are always aware of.”
Genetic errors in sperm increase by about half a percent by age 40, by 2% at 50, and by 5% and 20% when a man reaches 60 and 80, respectively, says Professor Les Sheffield of Melbourne’s Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. This, Sheffield says, is yet another reason men should assess the risks of delayed fatherhood just as carefully as women do.
Late fatherhood begins around age 40, according to Allan Pacey, professor of andrology at the University of Sheffield, who argues that the human body is best equipped for reproduction in the third decade of life and that both men and women should ideally have children before the age of 35 to minimise complications.
Still, even doctors sometimes take those risks themselves. At 40, Dr. Paul Turek became a father for the second time. Aware that couples of any age face a 3% chance of having a child with congenital disorders, Turek concluded that, although his age doubled that risk, it was not high enough to deter him. Likewise, Icelandic researcher Kári Stefánsson doesn’t discourage older couples from trying to conceive. A 2–3% risk, he says, can look very different “when you look at it in the context of everything that we have to go through, from the time that we are conceived until we die.”
Stefánsson is not the only expert warning that, while the individual risk remains relatively low, society as a whole may pay a steep price for the growing tendency to postpone parenthood to increasingly later ages.
As developed societies continue to age, psychiatrist Avi Reichenberg, who studies the relationship between paternal age and genetic disorders in children, has voiced concern about the challenges that lie ahead. Since schizophrenia typically emerges in adolescence or early adulthood, Reichenberg wonders who will care for these children if their fathers—already well into their seventies—are themselves struggling with dementia.
“If you’re 40 and you’re trying to have a child, you do the best you can,” says urologist Harry Fisch, who strongly encourages both men and women to have children as early as possible. This perspective is shared by many specialists in the field: rather than discouraging couples who come to them hoping for a child in the eleventh hour, they focus on encouraging younger couples not to postpone parenthood to a later stage of life—one often marked by greater risks and uncertainties. Yet it is also a stage filled with its own kind of miracle, as parents past their first youth can attest, seeing the second half of their lives reflected in the eyes of their children.
The fulfillments of mature parenthood
A life full of change—that’s how writer and television producer Philip Lerman sums up his experience of fatherhood. At 61, with a 14-year-old son, Lerman recalls all the warnings and criticisms he received when he first shared his intention to become a father. It’s a terrible thought, he says, to imagine that you might one day cause your child pain—but if the alternative is never to have that child at all, the choice becomes far easier.
While he readily acknowledges the less pleasant aspects of being an older dad—from being mistaken for his son’s grandfather to worrying that his late-in-life fatherhood might be linked to his son’s anxiety disorder—Lerman concludes that the advantages far outweigh the drawbacks. He works from home now, with a lighter schedule, something unimaginable in his younger years, when he was often still at the office long after children had gone to bed. His age, closer to that of a grandfather, has brought him patience and financial stability—gifts that allow him to choose a school perfectly suited to Max’s needs and to find the best therapist to help his son manage his anxiety. Lerman knows that every moment with his son is golden, and he takes joy in being able to invest in their relationship the wisdom and resources accumulated over a lifetime.
BBC journalist John Simpson speaks of the miracle that has transformed every layer of his existence since the birth of his son. Now in his sixties and the father of a young boy, Simpson believes he is a better parent than he was with his now-adult daughters—back then, as a young father, he had left most of the child-rearing responsibilities to his wife.
With his son, Rafe, Simpson feels he has fully immersed himself in fatherhood: changing diapers, feeding him, caring for him through illness, and playing with him whenever he can. His son, he says, has tethered him to life with invisible threads—just when he was beginning to feel himself drift away from it. Now, he has a powerful reason to return home safely from the dangerous corners of the world to which his work as a journalist takes him.
Late fatherhood is too often painted in dark tones, says Len Filppu, author of Prime Time Dads: 45 Reasons to Embrace Midlife Fatherhood. Filppu, who became a father at 49, believes that his maturity prepared him for one of life’s most demanding roles—precisely because, by that stage, he had already faced difficult challenges and learned to handle life’s absurdities with both prudence and humor. The birth of his children, he says, gave him a renewed sense of energy and youth, motivating him to do whatever it takes—from regular workouts to routine medical checkups—to increase his chances of living a long, healthy life. Filppu doesn’t believe that late fatherhood is for everyone, but for those fortunate enough to experience it, he calls it a hidden mine rich with unexpected treasures.
Late fatherhood often comes with a distinct set of traits: financial and professional stability, greater involvement in raising children, an acute awareness of the limited time left to share together, and a deep desire to make the most of it.
Among the advantages of older parenthood is a more stable home environment, says Jeremy Davies, a journalist specialising in social policy at The Fatherhood Institute. Older parents are “less likely to divorce or change partners,” he says.
Children born later in life also tend to occupy a central place in their parents’ world, truly embodying the role of long-awaited, deeply wanted children. They are often exposed to a wider range of educational opportunities—traveling more, attending better (often private) schools, and participating in a variety of extracurricular activities, psychologist Irena Milentijevic says.
A 2016 study also found that older parents tend to approach parenting in a more positive way, avoiding verbal or physical punishment. As a result, their children are less likely to experience behavioral, social, or emotional difficulties.
Ultimately, even when parenting demands significant effort—such as in raising twins—“We don’t believe that there is a direct correlation between the youth of parents and their effectiveness in raising multiples,” says Keith Rees, CEO of the Twins and Multiple Births Association. Rees believes that a parent’s age is secondary to their ability to provide children with a “safe, loving and happy environment,” which he calls the true litmus test of good parenting.
Joy and regret set to the rhythm of time
Even within what most parents would describe as a blessed experience, there inevitably slip in regrets, fears, and unwelcome moments that leave their subtle mark on the most intimate of human relationships.
While older parents may still be in good physical shape, the reality is that they will have less energy than younger ones, tire more easily, and may begin to feel—perhaps for the first time—that their health is starting to decline.
It is essential, says Kevin Arnold, director of the Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Therapy in Columbus, Ohio, that older parents understand what he calls the rule of squaring. If caring for one child can at times feel overwhelming, raising two children under the age of two requires more than simply doubling the effort, says Kevin Arnold, who speaks from personal experience about having young children later in life. “One is one, but two is four,” the psychologist says, warning prospective older parents about the inevitable drain on energy that comes with expanding the family at this stage of life.
What makes this period even more demanding is that raising children often coincides with caring for one’s own aging parents—a reality captured perfectly by the term “the sandwich generation,” which reflects the dual pressure faced by couples who choose to have children later in life.
One of the main challenges older parents encounter, says Vincent Lim, executive director of Focus on the Family Singapore, is the “lack of social support.” Their children may never know their grandparents, or the grandparents may be unable to play an active role in their upbringing. At the same time, the friends of an older father may already have adult children and therefore struggle to relate to the specific challenges of late parenthood, leaving him without the support network he needs.
When journalist Jemima Lewis speaks about the joy of becoming a parent just before the final curtain of fertility falls, she admits to one deep regret: she had her three children between the ages of 36 and 40. Her parents are now in their seventies and in poor health, and she wishes her children could have the same privilege she once did—to know their grandparents for decades. More than that, Lewis hopes she might one day be a grandmother herself, though not one of Methuselah’s age. The deepest fear of many older parents is that they simply won’t have enough time left to spend with their children.
“Even if you’re Paul McCartney’s child, you get ripped off if your father dies when you’re in your early 20s,” says Julianne Zweifel, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin. And while, as she admits, “there’s never a good age for your father to die,” journalist Helen McGurk knows from experience that an older parent is less likely to be around for key milestones in a child’s life—graduation, marriage, or the birth of a first grandchild. Her father died at 73, when she was just 23, and she still feels the sharp sting of regret that he never met her two children.
Moya Sarner, now 30, recently attended her octogenarian father’s birthday celebration. She carries a lifetime of special memories with him—but also a lingering thread of fear that’s been woven through her life since childhood. Her father suffered his first heart attack when she was just seven, and she grew up in its shadow—through hospital stays, real crises, and false alarms, his eventual blindness, and her constant fear of losing him altogether. Those years shaped the fabric of their family life and, far too early, turned her from a cared-for child into a kind of caregiver—one who used to lie to her schoolmates about her father’s age, trimming a convenient decade off the truth.
Margaret Cannington recalls that her father—53 years her senior—was far more involved in her upbringing than he had been with her older siblings, assuring her that her birth had made him feel young again and keeping pace with all the adventures of childhood. Yet despite the many cherished memories she holds, Margaret admits she cannot wholeheartedly endorse the idea of having children late in life. Caring for her father and losing him while still a teenager were experiences she wouldn’t wish on anyone. And, she adds, from a purely statistical standpoint, a child born later in a parent’s life is far more likely to witness, helplessly, that parent’s physical and mental decline.
Children who have only known the younger versions of their parents through photographs often blend regret and gratitude in their stories, in a moving tangle of emotion. “My parent’s age affects the way I live my life every day,” says Kaitlyn Wylde in an article in The Huffington Post. And yet, Kaitlyn is separated from her parents by “just” four decades. She was the youngest child in a family that never expected to revisit the stage of diapers and rattles—one that had already achieved financial and emotional stability by the time she was born.
Although the care and indulgence she received might have inspired envy from her older siblings, born during more turbulent years of family life, Kaitlyn feels that she is the one who has reason to envy them. As a child, she longed for the bustling family gatherings where there are never enough chairs, because the only grandparent she knew died when she was eight—along with other relatives—leaving her feeling “like a lizard living with dinosaurs.”
Kaitlyn has turned her awareness that her time with her parents may be shorter than most into a daily celebration of what she does have—she calls them every day and visits every few weeks. She’s come to realize that while her chances of having them present at the major milestones of her life may be slimmer, no one is ever promised such time. Some of her friends have already lost younger parents to accidents, cancer, or terrorism—tragedies no statistic can predict and no amount of careful family planning can prevent.
In the end, every story like hers is a weave of blessings and deprivations that inevitably orbits around the same axis—time—pressing both parent and child to look toward the future with a tighter knot in their hearts than most.
I never truly understood what it meant to have an older parent—mostly because mine were so young when I was born. For a long time, I would have said that having young parents is the greatest gift you can start life with. That was before I grew close to my husband’s grandfather—the one we were blessed to have the longest, after all our other grandparents had gone, some suddenly, others more gently. By temperament and by the force of circumstance, he had been more of a father than a grandfather; an elderly father, though, whose chances of living long enough to see us well into adulthood we sometimes estimated with quiet hope.
When he died, among the many words of comfort spoken on such occasions, I overheard something not meant for the grieving family, but which somehow reached me and stayed there, engraved on a string of the soul. “He was more than a father,” someone said. “A father is a father—what could be more than that?” another voice replied. For years I carried an unformed answer, softened by the passing seasons and partings, until it finally took shape: a father’s heart, even when it beats in a body worn by age, can be worth an entire family—especially when that family is missing.
In a life as fragile and fleeting as ours, age will always remain a meaningful marker, though never the most important one. Sometimes, when I see an older man—time having stripped him mercilessly of his youth—walking beside a child with bright eyes and unburdened shoulders, I think of my husband’s grandfather. Of the way he turned every encounter with us into a celebration; of the love that wrapped itself around every word, every gesture. Of how he stood at the gate, eyes glistening, hand raised in farewell, until we disappeared completely from view.
In a world where so many needs take root in the soil of uncertainty, being a true father may be the greatest blessing ever bestowed upon a life—and upon a child’s future.
