Global Courant
How big is too big to be a dad? The question is uncomfortable and hides several more questions. What is being great? And what too big?
The only thing old now is the traditional Father’s Day celebration. And it seems that parents are getting older. Sometimes a lot more.
The age bar is also high in this limbo of new parenthood.
A few days ago, interest in fatherhood in old age rose frantically in the world press when representatives of the actor Al Pacino, who is 83 years old, announced that he was going to have a son with his 29-year-old girlfriend, Noor Alfallah.
Al Pacino. The actor just became a father at 83 years old. AP Photo
Pacino received his card in the (non-existent) late-parenthood club this week with the birth of little Roman Pacino. Another member is occasional co-star Robert De Niro, who last month confirmed that he fathered his seventh child at age 79.
But let’s think about it in an argent key. And let’s go back to the beginning. How big is too big to be a dad?
It is clear that life expectancy increased and families changed. The general trend of paternity ran away just like in women, with their biological limits extended.
Those who had already been parents with previous partners do not resign, at least not because of age, having a baby with a new love on the way (even though they have walked a lot). On the other hand, fertility treatments are more common than ever.
Let’s call Antonio a lover of boats, a former sailor and still an operator in the port of Ushuaia, who is 75 years old and had his last child two years ago.
Without wanting to talk about his girlfriend, he tells Clarín that everyone gives him “20 years less”. And that he has “the strength of someone of 30”. Retired but very active at work, he has no problem that no one in Tierra del Fuego believes that he is the father of that child, but rather the grandfather.
“I already knew it before I was born. It didn’t surprise me afterwards. The surprise was that I am different from when I had my first daughter (at 23). It is not a physical issue, nor time, because my work always involves being many hours away from home. But I have another wisdom of the world. And my idea is to pass on that bonus of being a father/grandfather.”
Once it happens, how is parenthood (so) late?
Much closer to those stories of Hollywood and the end of the world, in Buenos Aires we have perhaps the “president” of the parents of old age. It’s Alberto Cormillot. He had Emilio at the age of 82. The baby, one and a half years old, has been with his brother Adrián for three decades.
“We both wanted to be parents, it was an act of love, it arose mutually,” Cormillot explained about the decision he made with Estefanía Pasquina, his partner 47 years younger.
He, who counts years as he calculates calories, has already devised a plan to communicate with Emilio after he is gone.
“He has a WhatsApp that I update every 15 or 20 days. I send him messages, photos, videos, stories and I send him stories,” explained the doctor and went further: “In addition, I have a file on the computer of messages for him and also on the cloud. Perhaps those messages are from me and perhaps the mother”.
Being the father of 3-year-old twins (with almost 69)
In this context of new loves on the road and fatherhood, Claudio Maldonado tells Clarín what it is like to be the father of 3 and a half-year-old twins, at (almost) 69 years.
Claudio already had two children from his previous marriage, but after 12 years of love with Verónica, they both felt that they wanted to be parents. At delivery, she was 42, a first-timer. With the third treatment, which, to avoid risks, it had already been clinically defined as going to be the last, the pregnancy was achieved and Santino and Mateo were born.
Claudio Maldonado with his three and a half year old children. Photo Maxi Failla
Why did you choose to be a father again despite your age (and having a granddaughter)? “First, because of the love I have for Vero, second because of this love I wanted to have something, I was always aware of my age, and third, because the law of life says that I would leave this plane first than her, and My wife doesn’t have a dad, she practically doesn’t have a mom, or siblings. I also thought I wouldn’t leave her alone,” he says.
To “address the evil or good”, says Claudio, the babies were born at the end of 2019 and the isolation due to the pandemic began in March. “Not going out, not going to work, made me enjoy them more. Right now, that I have a free job, I bring them with me. I try to kiss them, hug them, to give them whatever is left on their minds now, because I know that everything has a time”.
Every time it is heard that an older person can be a father or mother, the cards of feasibility (can he?), desire (will he want?) and even ethics (should?) are shuffled.
And Claudio, who looks completely better off than he did when he was a father in his twenties, just about went to the emotional deck this time.
“It was eight months of therapy. I’m afraid, I’m not going to deny it. But it’s an act of paternal love. Towards me too. I know that if one day I’m not there, they won’t lack love. I’m physically fine, I still haven’t It’s hard to look up to them. I didn’t measure their age. I wish I could see them when they’re older. It’s an internal struggle many times. I ended the sessions with the word ‘acceptance’, which came out of my psychologist’s mouth. I’ve been living for 100 years, what about that? No?”.
This big dad doesn’t have a problem with being mistaken for grandpa either. He’s passed her three times already. “I would think so too. He is not traumatic,” he says and lists from actor Norman Briski, who was the father of twins at 77, to Charles Chaplin among his late colleagues.
Norman Briski. The actor, director and teacher of actors had twins at 77. Photo Archive Clarín
Ricardo Iacub is a doctor in Psychology and the author of books and scientific articles on the subject, such as Erotica and old age. Western Perspectives. After the news about Pacino, he gave his opinion in a column in Clarín.
”I understand that being raised by parents is not the same as being raised by grandparents, since many times children feel that there is a lack of a generation, a loss. While when they are the big parents, or one of them is, this is not It is understood in the same way. Late is after 35. When we talk about people who are in late old age, physical deterioration and the time parents share with their children becomes more pressing, “says the psychologist.
That is the case of some of the protagonists of this note.
“Al Pacino, even if he is in good physical condition, he is more likely to become ill or disabled and his life time will be shorter than average. The mother will be able to ensure continuity of care, although the difficulties and early death of a father may facts are more difficult to process. Even parental care is usually complex, much more so when the children are too young for it,” he describes.
At the same time, Iacub asks that “the issue is not to generate simplistic criticism.”
Because psychology tells us that predictable events can be better tolerated than those that are not. In other words, the expectation of sharing with a person who has more limitations and a smaller amount of time to live together, usually becomes more tolerable, than when the events are less expected and an “unforeseen” loss could become traumatic.
If we talk about representatives of late paternity, the President really is a testimonial case. He became a father for the second time at 62.
First lady Fabiola Yáñez gave Francisco a cesarean section in April of last year. She arrived by in vitro fertilization. The first son of Alberto Fernández, Estanislao, 27, was born in 1994 as a result of his relationship with his first wife, Marcela Luchetti, with whom he was married for 20 years and from whom he separated after taking over as Chief of Staff from Néstor Kirchner, in 2003.
In a few posts on the networks with his son, Alberto chose Instagram on April 11 to barely show his life as a late father. “Today my dear Francisco celebrates his first year of life. He already takes his first steps. I see him grow. Thank you for so much happiness,” he posted along with a photo in which he can be seen guiding him. On May 1, he uploaded another photo, with the baby on his back looking towards the field.
How long can they? (according to science)
“They already consult us with the decision made, trying to consummate the desire. It is there where the reproductive capacity of the man is evaluated by means of a spermogram. The panorama will change according to that result, which, in general, in older men may be more or less altered (in quantity, mobility and shape)”, explains Sergio Pasqualini, medical director of Halitus, to Clarín.
Faced with the consultation of older men, the context is evaluated, always thinking about the well-being of the future baby. There is no law that limits the age of the parents in fertility treatments. But the context in the query is evaluated.
“If the man is, let’s say, over 70 years old and wants to have a child and the woman is young, it’s one thing, if both are older it’s another. In the first case something happens to the father, the mother would be left in charge of that son,” he describes.
What happens to sperm at older ages?
“Over time everything deteriorates. Although the decrease in fertility in women is better known because it is more marked, that does not mean that it does not decrease in men.”
Adding to the challenge of the natural decline in male reproductive function, studies have shown that pregnancy rates drop by 23% to 38% in men aged 50 and over compared to younger men. Sperm production is also affected, with a reduction of at least 25% in men over the age of 50.
Also the quality.
“The passage of time has implications for the quality of the spermatozoa, which can result in the inability to fertilize the egg, the generation of malformed embryos that stop developing or, in the case of performing IVF with the ICSI variant and transfer them, the lack of implantation”, closes the fertility expert.
AS
