This past Sunday was Father’s Day. It’s the sixth one I’ve celebrated. Well, it’s the fifth one I’ve celebrated. The first Father’s Day was one of the worst days of my life. I spent it at a racetrack about six hundred miles away from my son who was still under four pounds at the time — and that wasn’t the worst of it. I wouldn’t mind just forgetting Father’s Day of 2009.
But that is besides the point. The purpose of this post is to explain to you, the voluntarily childless young man, why you need to hurry up and have a son before it’s too late.
Note that I did not say “have a child”. I said have a son. It’s possible that having a daughter is wonderful. It’s also possible that owning a Harley-Davidson Road Glide is wonderful. But I don’t know, because I don’t have either. So I won’t say.
I never expected to have children. I grew up as the kind of liberal intellectual who talks about overpopulation and white privilege and income inequity and that sort of shit. Having my own child in a world where so many children were starving struck me as simultaneously selfish, ignorant, and trashy. I had open contempt for people who chose a traditional family arrangement and, as much as it embarrasses me to admit this, I just thought I was too brilliant to waste my time with children.
As a consequence of this attitude and a few other things that don’t merit a full discussion in these pages, I didn’t have a child until I was thirty-seven years old. I wasn’t all that hot on the idea when I found out that I was going to be a father. This is completely normal. Any man who tells you that you will immediately feel a bond with your child is a liar. I felt pity for John in his plastic breathing box. I felt concern for him. But I didn’t identify with him, I didn’t feel like I was his dad. Had it been up to me, I don’t think we ever would have had much of an emotional connection. We’d be like the fathers and sons of past generations and many an anguished first novel. Suspicious. Angry. Distant. I mean, why not? When the fuck have I ever had an emotional connection with anyone worth preserving? Why should this be any different?
But it wasn’t up to me. John had no interest in having that kind of relationship. He wanted me to be his fully involved and committed father and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He refused to just be a copy of my template, our shirts in the above photo aside. I was reading before I was two years old; John doesn’t have any interest in reading, really. I was introverted and quiet and contemplative. John is a natural leader of groups, always in everyone’s face, always setting the rules of the games and telling others what to do. I wanted to be left alone. John requires an audience at all times.
On the other hand, we’re both quick to anger, relatively insensitive to pain, thoroughly interested in dinosaurs. We like motorcycles, we like girls, we like breaking things. We like to fight with each other. He will sneak up and punch me as hard as he can in the stomach and when I smack him in response he says, as loud as he can, “That doesn’t hurt! You can’t defeat me!” A week or so a couple of kids tried to gang up and bully him at school. At least one of them still has cause to regret it, I think.
We have matching Razor “Black Series” scooters. We scoot around the half-mile neighborhood circle. Twentysomething mothers smile at this stupidity. They look at John and I think it briefly makes them consider something scandalous. I wink at them. You could have one, too. John waves at them and engages them in conversation. I take the resulting moment to catch my breath. Riding a tiny Razor scooter requires keeping one leg bent at ninety degrees for the whole time. It’s a classic isometric exercise.
I think about the trips we’ll make together, the adventures we will have, riding dirtbikes in Baja or watching a jazz session in the Village. I plan all the ways I can make his life better than mine was, but I also obsess about making sure he has obstacles to overcome. I’ll steer him away from every mistake I’ve ever made, and that will inevitably result in him making different mistakes, and I have to learn to be okay with that. I also have to be okay with the idea that maybe he won’t be programming computers when he is eight or writing for national publication when he is nineteen or the head of the college entrepreneurial society and maybe he won’t want to race Dad’s old Neon in NASA, you know?
Here’s the problem, though, and this is why I want you to pay attention: I started too late. When John leaves college I’ll be past sixty years old. When he is in his thirties and needs my advice, I’ll be in my seventies. Which is another way of saying I’ll be dead, because I don’t expect to live that long. I wish I’d started when I was twenty. I wish I’d been one of the stupid breeders I castigated in many a late-night dorm-room bullshit session. I wish he had three more brothers by now, the way my father has three brothers and I have the infamous Bark M. I wish I’d chosen a path that would have allowed John to be a college graduate by now, driving his white 911 across the country to Seattle or San Diego or to Dulles to catch the red-eye to Munich. I wish he was old enough that he was no longer at risk from my potential death by water or fire or gasoline or cancer.
So if you’re younger than I am, and you’re waiting until the right time to have a son, I will tell you this: There is never a right time. Never a time when you will have all the money you need and all the options you want and all the help you fear you can’t do without. So if there is never a right time, then the right time is now.
In other words: Happy Father’s Day. We’re waiting for you.
Pretty much right on all particulars. My boy will be 34 in a couple of weeks; he’s a pretty darn good specimen of the species, even if our interests seldom coincide, and he has two boys and a girl to set on the path of righteousness.
And really, it’s not so different if you have a girl. (Especially if you have a girl who isn’t afraid to do things like run a forklift, as mine isn’t.)
A thousand times yes. It is nearly impossible to explain it to men who have not had children and are hesitant to take the plunge. This article is another good attempt at it, plus it has a handy chart at the top
Love the shirts. We had Big Dipper and Little Dipper shirts when mine were about his age.
HREF fail. Sorry.
I’m 54 so it’s too late for me. I thought about and wanted kids when I was younger, but I wasn’t married, my living situation less than ideal and I just couldn’t subject a child to that. Having children makes you responsible for their upbringing and care, and I took that seriously.
I lost my dad last October, so this was my first Fathers Day without him. When i was young Dad told me that having children is the most wonderful experience in your life. He also told me that kids put an incredible strain on a marriage (my parents were married for 40 years until Mom passed, so we kids apparently weren’t enough to break their marriage).
I hope for you that your kid (s) are a blessing and your marriage is resilient. I envy your son having a cool dad like you.
Don’t be so sure, Pedro. I was forty three, a confirmed bachelor, successful in my career and a confirmed party animal, when I met the love of my life, out of the blue. And at forty nine I became the father to my son. My wife already had a daughter from a previous marriage, but Matt is our one and only.
And for every argument Jack gives about what is wrong with being older as a father, that are all arguments I also sided with when younger, I now know that I am a better prepared and more mature father, and my younger wife and my son (now 21) keep me younger, so that I am still mentally alert at 70, and reasonably physically active.
If the opportunity presents itself later in life, don’t shun it. I didn’t want to have a child with a women I doubted I would be with ten years later, but when I met the love of my life, we both knew that we would struggle for years to adjust to each other, yet no other relationship would ever do for either of us.
Now our whole small family is happy, and the struggles, and the age differences, were worth the results.
And my wife and my son are the two best things that ever happened to me, and I have had a life many would envy in many other ways. Not perfect, but far from difficult, except for the difficulties of my own making. But they are the best, by far…
Well……I deliberately left out a few relevant details. My other half is the love of my life, but he has some serious heart related health complications, which has resulted in some touch and go moments during our marriage - and even before we legally COULD marry.
So while I would have loved to have kids, the idea of bringing a child into that situation was untenable for us. We both could have been loving parents - and we make the best “Guncles” - but having our own kids would have been selfish.
I am blessed to have two sons. I asked my husband, after his brother welcomed a third daughter, if having a son was important to s man.
A sardonic grin accompanied his answer. “Not at all…..unless he doesn’t have one.”
I never missed having a daughter…of course, I have a beautiful one by marriage now….and she has given me a gorgeous granddaughter. I worship at my granddaughter’s shrine…but I marvel at the sheer little boy exuberance of my grandsons.
Yeah….you will miss incredible joy ….and overwhelmimg pain….if you choose to remain sans progeny..
Just remember, you will rejoice with them and suffer with them until the day you shuffle off this mortal coil.
If you cannot make that commitment, remain childless. Do not break an Innocent’s heart.
Regarding paragraph 2, I think we all have a communist phase in our lives. I didn’t go as far as not wanting to have kids, though. We could connect that sort of mentality, with what you referred in your past cop article.
I have a son, which is circa 6 months younger than yours. And a daughter, which arrived ~2 years ago. They are very different from each other, not just in their character, gender plays a huge role there.
He’s in many ways much different and at the same time very similar to me. He also remind me a lot of things from my childhood. Which is why I have had to accept that he has to make some of the same mistakes to learn, and that as much as I want to make his life much better, it probably is not that much of a good idea.
They are both a blessing and I cannot imagine life without them. But one day they’ll move on, as they’re just “borrowed” to us for a short period of time.
PS: I love your T-shirts
I love my stepdaughters to death. No they aren’t mine but I love them as if they were my own. We had a great father’s day weekend, seeing movies, going to the gym, dinner at UNO’s, just doing family stuff all weekend long. They’re great, greater than Frosty Flakes. :p
They were pretty pissed with their real dad. He came through town en route to the beach and didn’t even call or come by. He’s back with his psychopath girlfriend (this is their 6th or 7th breakup… the stories I could tell about that crazy bitch!) so he’s put his kids on the backburner again. Wouldn’t want to piss off the thundrec*nt by giving his own kids some attention, now would he?
I have no regrets for not having my own children. That’s the thing about life… change anything in your past and you change everything. And I don’t see how I could be happier with my personal life than I am.
Seems to me that YOU are their “real dad._”
I’m happy it’s worked out well for you, but I shan’t follow. Nothing to do with “overpopulation” or other stuffwhitepeoplelike.com, I simply don’t want that kind of responsibility,
Sometimes that window closes before you think it will. The Millennium Falcon doesn’t always make it out of the exogorth’s mouth.
“The Millennium Falcon doesn’t always make it out of the exogorth’s mouth.”
Really, FranklinCovey should put that on one of its planner pages.
I will never, EVER be able to look at that scene the same way again…
Pretty cool Jack ;
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I wish I could post a picture of my Son , his Wife and my beautiful Grand Daughter .
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I’m now ever so pleased my ex Wife sandbagged me with pregnancy when we were both in our twenties , as you surmised , him growing up while I was still in my youth helped us forge an iron bond that many envy now .
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Preventing him from making the same mistakes as I did wasn’t nearly as important as teaching him to carry on and learn from everything in life ~ I decided the day he was born to never lie to him , that’s occasionally difficult but has paid huge rewards , his Mother , OTOH , hasn’t stopped lying to him (any everyone else) yet….
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The really cool thing is : he had done everything correctly , not bass-ackwards & messed up like I did .
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HAPPY (belated) FATHER’S DAY to all appropriate ! .
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-Nate
(don’t forget to have TWO high quality prints made of that first photo , one for your mantel/bed side , another for him to squirrel away and look at after you’re gone)
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Easier said than done (firstborn son when I was >30). Only the lower class hussies are into having kids young, while the rest work on their ‘careers’ and Tinder swipes until imminent Wall impact.
Quoted for truth, unfortunately.
Thank you for the reminder that I need to spend more time with my son, who at 2.5 is already good at handing me the right tools. Unlike practically all my peers, we started young with kids when I was 25, and I dont regret that one bit. However, at this phase in my life I find myself so busy with work, cars, racing and general fucking around that I probably don’t spend enough time with them. Room for improvment.
Oh man this hits home for me, I’m 38 with a 2.5 yo daughter. I don’t feel too bad about it, no regrets and all that. While others were having those kids in their 20s I was travelling, adventure etc. Lots of worldly experience and perspective to impart on my little one hopefully! I was never sure if I would have kids, and I didn’t meet my wife until later so it is what it is.
The wife and I have a saying “You can spend whole life keeping your options open…” and I have plenty of friends who do this, always looking for the next girlfriend, next career whatever it is. But truly great things are only accomplished by closing some doors and committing. At least that is how I feel becoming a parent has been. I used to just pick up and go anywhere any time. Now I can’t. But the payoff is so fantastic, as you noted I don’t dictate the terms of the relationship, she does 😉
Nice article but stop with the poor me I am so old. My first born (son) was born when I was 30 so only 7 years before you. We still ride mountain bikes together and do other crazy stuff even though he has now graduated from college. I have had my share of broken bones and have to live with the harsh way I have treated my body, although it sounds like your has been harsher. The key is every year you have to work out a little more and eat a little better so you can try and slow the ever increasing downhill slide to death.
Your son will make you younger, and keep you younger.
And the iron bond, coupled with the necessity to recognize and honor the differences, is one of the great growth opportunities of life.
For my son and me, we share T-shirts, especially old, sort of rare ones I used to collect just for myself. And we have very similar, but not identical, NY Yankees hats. When I won two Shark Tank Sharky shirts, I gave one to him. One of his favorite t-shirts, which he fully “gets” is a picture of a big wave surfer behind a portrait of Einstein, with the caption “Know your limits and start from there.”
My reluctance was not politics, it was pure selfishness plus my inability to make any relationship last longer than a few years. But there was one night when it was a choice of going straight to sleep after a long hard day together, or not…and fully aware of what would probably happen, I didn’t roll over and go to sleep. One of the best decisions I ever made.
And as much as I try to be a good person as an example to me, he surprises me from time to time, with a greater heart, a greater forgiveness for the shortcomings of others, with a more sincere forgiveness and kindness, even towards those who have disappointed him.
I got all I hoped for, and more. Where once I had relationships that were “love” because it was to my benefit, I now have two people I love more than I love anything I could have for myself. And they reciprocate that, which is something I used to think only existed in novels and chick flicks.
But hey, Jack, changing the topic, since I don’t know how else to get this request to you, any chance of a review from you of the Alfa Romeo 4C? As one of the fastest cars that also gets great mileage, it is the most intriguing car on the horizon (to me) that is well under 100 large. I would love to know what your thoughts are on the vehicle, after seeing your FiST and Huracán reviews.
I have some wheel time in the 4C and I could do the review here without ruffling too many feathers, I think.
I”m discovering that the best reason to have kids when you’re relatively young is being young enough to enjoy your grandchildren. I usually watch my 3 yr old grandson once a week and I’m not sure that I’d have the energy to keep up with him if I was ten years older.
Having daughters is just as cool as having sons, just different. You can’t tell your adult daughters a dirty joke.
Mine, you could. (In fact, I’m pretty sure I have.)
I can’t help but agree with you, but I will add it doesn’t matter if it’s a son or a daughter. I think that we mostly get the kid we deserve, whether it’s ‘destiny’ or ‘gods will’ or just the way evolution works naturally. Kids can be a challenge, but to turn around a cliche a bit; ‘With great responsibilty comes great powers’. I think our job as parents is to make sure our kids grow up to be ‘better’ than us.
When I was a teenager I thought just like you did about having children, and I was quite sure that if I were to ever have children deliberately it would be when I had finished a proper education and ‘lived my life’ to the fullest as long as I could. But, then at 20 I had a ‘happy little accident’ with a girl who was already having a lot of struggles in her life, and whom I was sure I cold never have a serious relationship with…
16 years later we are still together and I have an awesome ‘tomboy’ who drags me along to conventions , is artistic, can chop threes and who used to beat up boys twice her age. And we already have an alarmingly similar taste in music, films , bad jokes and even women…
I did make sure to not try to control her or guard her against making mistakes to much when younger though, and her younger brothers are allowed to learn how dangerous a speeding bike, a hammer or a rusty old axe is too(with some supervision, hurray for ‘free’ healthcare). I never forced her to be bright or tough, she just ‘decided’ to be so herself.
I sometimes think that having parents, or important rolemodels that are somewhat different is important though. Kids who have two parents have an advantage over single parent kids in that they can observe several different ways of thinking and doing things, which makes it easier for them to make to decide who they want to be. Children of single parents very often turn out either trying to be their parent, or trying to spite their parent.
While I certainly won’t encourage people to have children while being in an unstable relationship at a young age, while also being unemployed, uneducated, and not even having a decent place to live, but you’d be surprised at how much easier it is to fix stuff like that, or learn to live with it, when you have enough motivation.
I honestly feel sorry for the male (or female) friends I have that are my age and have not experienced evolution up close yet.
(PS don’t let your son inherit your awful taste in films, Fury Road is , was, and will always be, brutally awesome)
That’s simply a beautiful piece, Jack. Very close to my own experience. Started too late? Not quite, but when my daughter graduated high school this year, I became eligible for the Senior Discount pass at National Parks (a very nice deal, when you get to 62). I’ve spent the past year researching both undergraduate financial aid and Social Security benefits strategy. Too much is happening at the back end of my life, becauseI couldn’t make that deep connection during the first half.
If anyone else is feeling Jack’s pre=parental doubts, I’d just say this: it’s in you already. We’re all the children of fathers, as well as mothers, for so many generations back. Bonding with your own offspring is a most natural impulse, unless you develop some mentally- or socially-created artificial ideology that you can’t, won’t won’t or shouldn’t. Just give it the same commitment it takes to round a corner at 1 g, or do a backflip on skiis, or any other daring thing that Manly men dare to do.
PS-The funny thing is, although becoming a father at 44 seemed on the verge of “too late, “the events of my kid’s childhood all convinced me of the opposite.
She was born exactly at the right time. This was borne out through her school career. Somehow she always wound up with the best teachers through elementary school, while parents of those in the GT class behind her saw problems and complaints. One especially gifted teacher stayed with her class for four years, creating a deep bond and a stable classroom environment. Then she went to middle school, the year it opened a whole new performing arts wing (she’s a fine musician; I’m a hack guitarist). Her high school won a nationwide lip-dub competition for Katy Perry’s big Good Morning America debut concert, but that was only one peak experience among four years of dramatic marching band competitions, award-winning orchestra concerts and hard work towards an IB degree.
A few months after graduation, all has changed. A new conservative majority on the school board has generated nationwide controversy by calling for censorship of the AP US History curriculum. They’ve so agitated the teachers that they’re transferring in droves from this high-performing district. Including our well-regarded music director.
The moral- you never know the right time to have a kid. One year earlier or later, and my daughter’s school career would have been so different- and probably not better.