[runsonmagic]

I keep seeing stories like this...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22...wddw14mxwB

...trying to imply men have a biological clock as well.

Quote:

So should men be encouraged to have children in their 20s rather than waiting until their 30s or 40s. Probably not. Although there is a big increase in risk for many disorders, it's a big increase in a very small risk. A 40-year-old is about 50 per cent more likely to father an autistic child than a 20-year-old is, for instance, but the overall risk is only about 1 per cent to start with. Having older parents may also be beneficial – giving their children a more stable home environment, for example.

I think it's an attempt to scare men and project women's needs on to them. Tell a woman the same thing and you're a misogynist.

That said, I'm someone who wants kids, so I don't want to dismiss research simply because it's conclusions aren't convenient for me.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

Yeah, it's ridiculous feminist propaganda that only serves to buttress the female delusion about not being responsible for putting off motherhood until late 30s. There is some risk for men too, to be sure, but it is a linear risk whereas the female risk is geometric.

This is from a Croatian source, but it illustrates the relative chances of a child having Down syndrome by maternal age (black), and a child having any of the defects associated with paternal age (red):



Conclusion: male biological clock = horseshit.

[Daddy]

Having children at 20 years old allows you to start over and have a second family at 45.

[Tommy Eyes]

These studies always worry me too, esp. since my brother is autistic and mentally retarded, and a lot of my family have developmental issues/mental illness. My mom was over 35 when she had my brother, so that was probably the main reason. Whenever I mention the age thing to my mom, she gets real mad and references these studies. Prob go to one of those genetics specialists in the future, see if I can even have viable kids. Also wanna check my fertility before marriage (if I get married). Don't wanna end up cucked or adopting some random kid, or be one of those pointless childless marriages.

[Icarus]

I don't think it's a bad idea for a man to have children in his mid 20s.

If you marry an 18-year-old at 25 and become a father at 26 and then again at 28 (when your wife is 21), then your parents and her parents (i.e., your mother and her mother) can take care of the kids until they are 5 years old or so, and you can stay focused on your career.

Once your kids go to school, your father and your wife's father can become more involved, and when the kids are 9 or so, you have maybe 3 golden years to bond with them before puberty turns them against you. This way, the wisdom of your father is passed to your sons and daughters. It is normal for kids to rebel against their parents during their teenage years, but hopefully they will listen to their grandparents.

My grandfathers married late and died when I was very young. They had no life left to teach me anything, and my parents were too busy working. I wish they all had married earlier, so I could have learned some 1920s Game from my grandfathers...

[Frost]

I think it's mostly a selection effect. What sort of men have children later in life? Nerdy guys, i.e. men on the autism spectrum. These men are more likely to have low-functioning autistic children. I wrote a post on this subject a little while ago:

http://www.thumotic.com/delayed-fatherhood-and-autism/

"Athlone has a fine article up at Return of Kings today, The Myth of The Male Biological Clock. Among his conclusions:

“The truth is that while men do indeed have reproductive limitations, these limitations are fewer in number and of decidedly inferior severity relative to their female counterparts. The male of the species is not ageless, but his reproductive capacity is better suited for advanced age.”

The article is a response to some recent feminist bean-flicking over the suggestion that men must contend with their biological clocks just as much as women, or suffer the indignity of fathering autistic children.

Autism is an interesting phenomenon. Two books that I recommend on this subject are Thomas Sowell’s (yes, that Thomas Sowell) Late-Talking Children and Tyler Cowen’s (Yes, that Tyler Cowen) Create Your Own Economy. To grossly oversimplify, it appears that clinical autism results from the same gene complexes that, in their less extreme form, result in introversion, a fascination with structure, and spatial reasoning skills. A genetic propensity for autism, like sickle-cell anemia, confers benefits to mild cases despite being maladaptive in its extreme form. Schizophrenia and Manic-Depression have been similarly linked to superior cognitive abilities, and it stands to reason that genes for any mental illness with a genetic component must confer some benefit, whether we understand it or not.

But back to autism. Based on observational studies, men who father children later in life have a slightly higher risk of having autistic children. The risk is small enough that it’s worth ignoring, and I suspect the real story is even kinder to men, such as myself, who plan to delay fatherhood into their late 30s and 40s.

Consider the sort of man who reproduces early in life: Good old Billy Joe, captain of the West Side High football team, drives his pa’s 2003 Ford F-150 ever since pa got a new one and gave the old truck to Billy Joe for his 17th birthday. Ladies love Billy Joe and he has four kids by three comely lasses before he turns 22, at which point he starts working at the sheet metal factory for a few years before it closes down (Thanks Obama!) and spends the rest of his life on long-term disability. Billy Joe – and his Dalit analog, DeAndre the Gangbanger, who planted a few seeds in a few baby mamas before getting shanked in prison – peak early, reproductively speaking.

From Athlone’s article:

“Mark Daly, a geneticist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston who studies autism, says that increasing paternal age is unlikely to account for all of the rise in autism prevalence. He notes that autism is highly heritable, but that most cases are not caused by a single new mutation — so there must be predisposing factors that are inherited from parents but are distinct from the new mutations occurring in sperm.”

Billy Joe and DeAndre are, to put it mildly, not likely to pass on the gene complexes responsible for Autism.

But consider the sort of man – Wendell Wallflower, say – who reproduces later in life. Wendel is a shy, bookish fellow in high school. In college, he is ignored by the fairer sex and confined to male-dominated engineering and computer science classes. In early adulthood, he is completely baffled by the ease with which men simpler than him can chat up women in social situations.

Wendell is the sort of man who, while not clinically autistic, certainly possesses a few of the relevant gene complexes. As a result he is more likely to reproduce later in life, after an adulthood spent acquiring resources and becoming the sort of stable provider that women in their mid-thirties eventually realize isn’t such a bad wagon to hitch their star to. Wendell is more likely to have autistic children, because he possesses more of the genes that cause autism. Those same genes push Wendell into a long-term, K-selected reproductive strategy. Delayed fatherhood doesn’t cause autism, mild autism causes delayed fatherhood.

And even if I’m wrong, and delayed fatherhood actually does cause autism in some cases, it probably also causes mild autism (i.e. the ability to earn a living in the digital economy) in many more. Personally, I would rather have a bright but nerdy son and give him a pair of boxing gloves and copy of Mystery Method on his twelfth birthday, than a socially savvy but barely literate meathead.

So my conclusion is even more optimistic than Athlone’s: There are few downsides to taking your sweet time at the daunting task of finding a decent wife from the hypergamous swamps of the modern sexual marketplace. Media-hyped fear of a correlation between delayed fatherhood and Autism is not one of them. You may now continue spending your twenties and early thirties honing your body and mind into a deadly weapon, prioritizing MOB, and generally living your life free of fear that the male biological clock is anything but a myth."

[MrLemon]

(02-21-2014 10:05 AM)Tommy Eyes Wrote:  

These studies always worry me too, esp. since my brother is autistic and mentally retarded, and a lot of my family have developmental issues/mental illness. My mom was over 35 when she had my brother, so that was probably the main reason. Whenever I mention the age thing to my mom, she gets real mad and references these studies. Prob go to one of those genetics specialists in the future, see if I can even have viable kids. Also wanna check my fertility before marriage (if I get married). Don't wanna end up cucked or adopting some random kid, or be one of those pointless childless marriages.

Ignore your mom. Problem solved.

[kosko]

(02-21-2014 10:05 AM)Tommy Eyes Wrote:  

These studies always worry me too, esp. since my brother is autistic and mentally retarded, and a lot of my family have developmental issues/mental illness. My mom was over 35 when she had my brother, so that was probably the main reason. Whenever I mention the age thing to my mom, she gets real mad and references these studies. Prob go to one of those genetics specialists in the future, see if I can even have viable kids. Also wanna check my fertility before marriage (if I get married). Don't wanna end up cucked or adopting some random kid, or be one of those pointless childless marriages.

There you go. My Cousin has issues and its because my Aunt had him at 36...

Male's only face complications when they have children with old women....


Be 40 and have a kid with a woman in her 20s... problem fixed.

It goes up like 1% per year for men 35-40, versus like a compounding eventually 50/50 a women gets when she is 35-40+.

Its always best for men to sow their seeds at the peak of their earnings and thus stability.

[Don_]

I'm in my early 20 and have intense urge to procreate, especially if the girl already have a man.

[rudebwoy]

Autism is heavily related to vaccines, which are complete crap these days.
Being in my 40s I now have a desire for a child, before I saw them as a nuisance and felt sorry for guys that where saddled with them. It is hard to globe trot when you have mouths to feed.
Western women are also selfish, they want to experience life (cock) before a kid comes along. These days it seems people don't plan for them, they just happen.

[cardguy]

@Frost - brilliant post. Never thought of the autism link as being a self-selection effect.

[lavidaloca]

I've always thought it would be kind of cool to have a child in a 2nd or 3rd world country when I'm younger. Then when I'm in my 40s and 50s take him/her on many adventures seeing the world. But thats probably not realistic. Whats more likely to happen is my bank account starts to become severely depleted and all my dreams are put on hold.

Providing a child a 1%er lifestyle in a place like Cuba may only cost me $1000 a month...providing a child a 1%er lifestyle in Canada...(haha.)

If it happens and I do get a girl pregnant abroad I don't see it as a bad thing. I have been ripped on endlessly by friends who say how could you not bring him/her to Canada right away. I try to explain to them that the top 1% is pretty damn good just about anywhere and they will have a far better life outside of Canada until they are college aged at which time they may wish to study here/ pursue a career here.

I would never want to have a kid with a woman here unless I was retired or semi-retired. Otherwise too much of my income would be paying for "mommies expenses."

[Merenguero]

(02-21-2014 09:15 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

Yeah, it's ridiculous feminist propaganda that only serves to buttress the female delusion about not being responsible for putting off motherhood until late 30s. There is some risk for men too, to be sure, but it is a linear risk whereas the female risk is geometric.

This is from a Croatian source, but it illustrates the relative chances of a child having Down syndrome by maternal age (black), and a child having any of the defects associated with paternal age (red):



Conclusion: male biological clock = horseshit.

This may be true with regard to Down Syndrome, but paternal age can cause some defects, such as an increased risk of having children with bi-polar disorder. My dad was at a pretty advanced age when I was born and I was told after extensive testing that I have no learning disabilities and no psychological problems at all. The same psychiatrists and psychologists who told me that also said that I had the intelligence of a person who with hard work could possibly graduate high school without being in special ed and I ended up on the dean's list throughout college, got good grades in law school, and passed two states' bar exams, so who really knows.

[UrbanNerd]

Let's see...

My father was 41 and my mother was 30 when I was born. Not that post-high school means much but my undergraduate major was something called Applied Mathematics. After 8 years of working as a software engineer, I decided to grab another degree...this time a master's in something called Systems Engineering.

I have a sister and brother who were born after me (same parents) and my sister does all of that Cisco network stuff.

When did I have my first only only child?...age 36.

[The Lizard of Oz]

The article cited in the OP makes by far the most relevant point that needs to be made:

Quote:

So should men be encouraged to have children in their 20s rather than waiting until their 30s or 40s. Probably not. Although there is a big increase in risk for many disorders, it's a big increase in a very small risk. A 40-year-old is about 50 per cent more likely to father an autistic child than a 20-year-old is, for instance, but the overall risk is only about 1 per cent to start with. Having older parents may also be beneficial – giving their children a more stable home environment, for example.

This is the key and is so often overlooked when "increased risk" is mentioned.

Assume it's true that the risk for a man of 20 of having an autistic child is 1 in 100 (I think this is greatly overstated because of the overdiagnosis of autism, but I'll let this pass for now), and that the risk is increased by a "whopping" 50% for a man of 40.

A 50% higher risk sounds like a much higher risk, but what does this really mean? In absolute numbers it means that of every 200 kids born to men of 20, 2 will be autistic; whereas of every 200 kids born to men of 40, 3 will be autistic. In other words, a very small number in either case. So if you wait 20 years to father a child, the risk that the child will be autistic only rises by an additional 1/200 (0.5%).

The lesson is that even a large relative increase in a risk that was very low to begin with is not that big a deal and is pretty much completely negligible. This is also true of a lot of studies that you hear about in the news: XYZ doubles your risk of having a particular cancer, for example. Well, if your risk of having that cancer was very low to begin with, then doubling it sounds bad but it's really not that big of a deal.

The bottom line is that there is no comparison between the additional risks of childbirth to an older mother vs an older father, because the birth defects whose risk is increased for older mothers are much more common to begin with, so the increases in risk are much greater in absolute terms.

In other words, as long as the mother is young, there is very little to worry about.

[freewheeler]

(02-21-2014 09:13 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  

The article cited in the OP makes by far the most relevant point that needs to be made:

Quote:

So should men be encouraged to have children in their 20s rather than waiting until their 30s or 40s. Probably not. Although there is a big increase in risk for many disorders, it's a big increase in a very small risk. A 40-year-old is about 50 per cent more likely to father an autistic child than a 20-year-old is, for instance, but the overall risk is only about 1 per cent to start with. Having older parents may also be beneficial – giving their children a more stable home environment, for example.

This is the key and is so often overlooked when "increased risk" is mentioned.

Assume it's true that the risk for a man of 20 of having an autistic child is 1 in 100 (I think this is greatly overstated because of the overdiagnosis of autism, but I'll let this pass for now), and that the risk is increased by a "whopping" 50% for a man of 40.

A 50% higher risk sounds like a much higher risk, but what does this really mean? In absolute numbers it means that of every 200 kids born to men of 20, 2 will be autistic; whereas of every 200 kids born to men of 40, 3 will be autistic. In other words, a very small number in either case. So if you wait 20 years to father a child, the risk that the child will be autistic only rises by an additional 1/200 (0.5%).

The lesson is that even a large relative increase in a risk that was very low to begin with is not that big a deal and is pretty much completely negligible. This is also true of a lot of studies that you hear about in the news: XYZ doubles your risk of having a particular cancer, for example. Well, if your risk of having that cancer was very low to begin with, then doubling it sounds bad but it's really not that big of a deal.

The bottom line is that there is no comparison between the additional risks of childbirth to an older mother vs an older father, because the birth defects whose risk is increased for older mothers are much more common to begin with, so the increases in risk are much greater in absolute terms.

In other words, as long as the mother is young, there is very little to worry about.

Solid post.

Often with research/media there is a play on the absolute risk vs. relative risk angle.

For instance, you might see a headline that reads "New Miracle Drug Decreases Cancer Risk by 50%."

Now in reality if your absolute risk prior to taking the drug was 2%, but after taking the drug is only 1% that is a 50% reduction (relatively speaking).

But in the absolute sense, does a reduction from 2% to 1% really make a difference?

[The Lizard of Oz]

freewheeler (or anyone else), if you're interested in understanding how to think clearly about these things, this will be just one of the topics covered (with plenty of examples) in my stats thread once it really gets going.

[Tytalus]

I'm a father of 3, age 30. Kids are 6, 4 and 1. One thing I have definitely noticed is that I have way more energy for my little kids than the father's I've met in their late 40s with a small family.

There is a certain quality of life factor that is important as well - ideally I'll get to be granddad in my 50s or 60s, and be young enough to pass on knowledge to my grand kids as well.

[Parlay44]

If you follow the plan society has laid out for you you'd finish college at about 23. Work for a few years and marry your college sweetheart who was a freshman when you were a senior.

If you're more than 4-6 years older than your girl there's somewhat of a generation gap. Personally I don't give a shit. I've banged younger girls. For me to be happy in a relationship I need a woman that is pleasant, sorta happy go lucky and looks up to me. That's what works for me.

[Vaun]

For a man to believe being able to "round second" at full speed is one the most important criteria for having children has to be one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard, which makes me think it was started by women. As if its as important a consideration, as being financially secure. I know of no 50 year old guys that cant go swimming with, play catch with, or have fun with their kids, baring any unforeseen tragic illness/accident. That is a complete myth. For any of the younger guys, WAIT, until you have achieved your financial goals or are well into bachelorhood over the age of 40.

What I hate is this statement you hear when you consider marriage "there is never a right time.." My concerns with people I asked were, "were too young" "we have only been together for a year", "I am not in the place I want to be financially and professionally" and on and on. Their response(usually women, when I asked for their advice) was always "Its never going to be the right time".. Well, thats all BULLSHIT. There is a right time, and a better time, when you have more money and are actually prepared. Wait for that, dont listen to well intentioned schmucks. There is no better way to set yourself back financially and professionally as a young man than having children.

[cardguy]

Wait I agree with that statement.

There really is "never a right time to get married."

Ever.

[jamaicabound]

I think people should have kids when they are comfortable and ready to. There's pros and cons to having kids at a younger age vs older. Younger parents are probably more immature, don't have as much life experience, not as settled financially. Older parents are more stable, mature, more life experience but maybe don't have as much energy to roughhouse with the kids or take them outdoors and stuff.

There's no sense in encouraging someone to have kids at a younger age if they are going to be too busy with social lives and work to raise their kid.

I personally think 35 is about the age I wanna have kids. Young enough I'm not a grandpa when they graduate high school and go on to college but old enough that I've got some experience under my belt, am settled financially and okay with settling down, slowing down on traveling and stuff.

[UrbanNerd]

(02-21-2014 11:03 AM)Icarus Wrote:  

If you marry an 18-year-old at 25 and become a father at 26 and then again at 28 (when your wife is 21), then your parents and her parents (i.e., your mother and her mother) can take care of the kids until they are 5 years old or so, and you can stay focused on your career.

I don't know if I agree with this.

Marry an 18 year-old? That means you WILL BE 100% responsible for all of the finances. Plus you would have to be damn-near the best in your profession so you can withstand possible changes in the job-market.

Not to mention, at risk to lose the MOST in the event of a divorce.

You are a better man than me. I am not taking on all of that. I want my hair with as little gray as possible. I like the idea of grandparents helping with kid-care but I need a chick who can offset AT LEAST 1/3 of those finances.

An 18 year old cannot do anything but ring a cash register.

....and you are giving up half of your 20's??

[Hispanic_Reasoning]

A man SHOULD ONLY have children in their 30s at least. Men are typically in their high earning potential and mature enough when they are in their 30s in the modern age. Maybe in the past in pre industrial societies, it made sense to marry early but now it doesn't because we live longer and take longer to achieve high earning potential.

For women, they must have children in their 20s and nothing else. Any other age and you risk having kids with defects and having a woman who is damaged goods.

[jariel]

Should men handicap their futures going forward when they're at a stage in life where they're still trying to learn about themselves, the world in which they live, and how they want to fit into it all?