“Are you her grandpa?” the young girl playing on the playground asked me, pointing at my toddler.

Ouch.

The usual course of a life (still) seems to be that we go from childhood and teenage years into adulthood by finding a job and starting a family.

Around one’s 40s, one has gained a dad bod, the time for self-improvement is over even as the children move out, midlife crisis ensues.

You don’t even have to have children to notice the advancing of age – but it certainly drives home the point.

You can ignore it – or you can reflect on it and use it for learning.

A Different Life Story

Having only become a parent in my 40s means that I don’t have time for a midlife crisis. It has made me feel both older and younger, more average and better.

I’m finally in a job that offers some stability and a steady and okay income. It took me long enough to get there to really appreciate the structure and be okay with the challenges.

Teaching isn’t exactly a 9-to-5, but working at an all-day school, it’s often a bit longer.

Commuting to work, I typically have to leave just before 6am and I often only get back by 6 pm. There are precious few hours before bedtime for the little one(s), and I still try to help with care, cooking, chores.

(And I hate that I can only “help,” which shows only too well how comparatively little that is.)

Disengaging from work when back home is difficult when messages from pupils’ parents may still arrive (or need to be written). All too often, I’m still mulling over what went well and what badly, and so on.

Watching my own children, I cannot help but compare and contrast with the children I teach – and see for more hours each day, each week, than my own. I wonder how I can raise them well and make them love learning.

First, however, there has been a lot of learning of my own.

What Life Stories Are Normal

I may be becoming more and more average, with a job, a wife, a dog, two children, but there’s a lot to be said for it.

And is it really so unusual to have children only later in life? Is it problematic or actually advantageous?

Talking of averages, it’s curious that we have the view of the course of a life I described above.

Actually, the average age at which Austrian women have their first child is currently (2022) at 31.5 years of age; men on average become fathers at 34.3 years of age.

It’s considerably more children who are born to women aged 30-39 than to women under the age of 30.

Then again, fathers aged 40 and above – like me – are considerably rarer, relatively speaking (and the statistics for that don’t say if those are first or later children).

A midlife crisis at 40, because the children are out of the house, definitely doesn’t work for many around me.

My wife, although of Chinese nationality, fits the Austrian average pretty well; I am older than usual for a young father.

Memento Mori

The mathematics of becoming a parent later in life are only too clear, and they are all too good for the kind of forward thinking about our future selves that we should probably do more of.

It’s easy to calculate how…

… when the kids start school, I’ll have just rounded 50 years of age;

… I’ll approach present-day retirement age when they finish school;

… and if they took a similar time to have kids, I’d need to live well into my 80s to experience becoming a grandfather.

Funnily(?), that latter is how things went for my own father, at least considering me. Fortunately, he is still doing well, so there’s hope – and looking at athletics, one enters “masters” age at 35.

My older brother’s children are out of university by now…

This mathematics means that the chances of me not being around to see my children grow up, become independent adults, let alone have children of their own, are increasing year by year.

That sure is a downside (and quite the downer if one thinks too much about it), but it comes with upsides: maturity and motivation.

Maturity – and Continuous Learning

Being a parent is an all-new learning experience (and it has been a great example of the learning we only do when we are really, personally, in a situation where we need to acquire new skills and knowledge, not from learning the facts and being told).

Whether you learn to change diapers at 20 or at 40 years old doesn’t make much of a difference, you have to learn that, either way.

For better or worse, however, I am more mature now. My wife and I are both settled in our roles, our lives, a bit more than we used to be, and it helps.

We know that we can manage even when it all becomes a bit much. We have been through things.

We certainly know that we want to set clear boundaries and won’t be pushed into discussions that are of no use, be they with the children or about parenting.

Oh, sure, there are fascinating “Yes! No!”-discussions with our now two-year-old on what animal figure diaper she wants (and we are happy to oblige – or at least, I am), what socks she has to wear… but there is no discussion about brushing teeth before bed, crossing roads without looking and holding hands.

Essential boundaries are just clear. Feelings and reasons can be discussed at appropriate times, when the child is receptive to that and not threatening to run in front of a car.

Being older, having more life experience, seems to have been helping with that. Maybe having become a parent earlier would have helped get more mature earlier, and often, I don’t feel particularly mature, so I’ll leave open the possibility that this is motivational self-talk more than it is fact.

Looking at the example of my pupils, however, I think that there is some element of age having given maturity at play.

Motivation

Motivation is a more definite thing… I think.

For one, my wife and I really decided to have children. There was no wavering, no “if it happens” – we wanted children at that phase of our lives and we felt as ready as one can ever be.

The first pregnancy didn’t work out, which was a bad experience but also quite the learning experience and motivator.

We are also pretty motivated, at this phase in our lives, with my experiences as an educator, to raise our children well. Maturity, at least in the sense of everything we have learned, also comes into play here: We know what we find important, and we are determined to help our children learn. Worst case, they will learn that we find those things important.

My experiences on the job market helped me appreciate my current employment, and here too, the children have been additional motivation. Of course, that’s where the usual problem of a dad wanting to provide for his family (and/or to avoid the care work at home with its horrible compensation…) comes into play: Striking a balance between an appreciation for the money a job brings and the time it takes away from family is not the easiest thing to do.

Finally, the mathematics of the age difference between my children and me forces me to be motivated to look ahead, think of the future, and try to live so that I can remain as fit and as healthy as possible for as long as possible.

Healthspan, fancy new concept for medicine and lots of longevity-focused businesses as it may be, has a deep meaning for me because of that.

Passing on genes (and learning) and looking at health(span) led me to microexploration of myself, to learning more about my roots and biology, and to go on towards health and fitness goals from there.

It’s getting to be quite the journey of discovery…