Older dads: ‘At times you wish you had more patience or energy, but it’s amazing’

New fathers are no longer so fresh-faced. Whether it’s Ryan Tubridy announcing that he’s to become a father again at 53 or Eurovision winner Paul Harrington having his second child in 2019 at 60, the decision to have children later in life is not the surprise it once was. While women have a natural ceiling on fertility, men are able to procreate well into their 60s, 70s and beyond. In 2023 Al Pacino became a father again at 83. Robert de Niro welcomed daughter Gia in 2023 when he was on the cusp of his 80th birthday. Mick Jagger was 73 when his son Deveraux arrived in 2016. It’s not unusual these days to find dads in their 40s, 50s and even 60s pushing their kids on swings in the playground or helping them shovel sand into their trucks in the sandpit. Second marriages and relationships, greater fertility options and the all-consuming career scramble play a part in the move towards older parenting, along with the delays caused by pressures around housing, mortgages and job insecurity. There’s the fact that we live longer – the over-65 population has grown by 35 per cent in Ireland over the past decade – more than three times the rate of growth in the overall population, even as the birth rate falls. While there is little official data on new fathers in Ireland, improvements in healthcare are undoubtedly giving men and women more options as they age. READ MORE“Sixty-five isn’t the same as 65 was 30 or 40 years ago,” says psychologist Colman Noctor of the trend. “People are living longer. They’re probably being healthier and staying younger. So while I would imagine there are challenges and differences [to older parenting], I wouldn’t see huge disadvantages.”“Don’t let being older be a barrier to happiness”Alex Kane knows what it feels like to have a parent who is older. He was adopted at the age of six by Sam and Adelaide in east Belfast. Sam, his adoptive father, was in his mid-50s at the time. It made no difference to Kane. “He was just my dad,” Kane says. “A quiet man who knew that his role was to be the rock that I needed. Right until he died, when he was nearly 72, that was his role.” Kane had been in an orphanage for two years before his adoption. He has no memory of anything that happened to him before he turned six. “My system had blocked everything out. I had no recall. My life began when I was six years old. Psychiatrists would say it’s trauma.”His happy adoption has deeply informed his attitude to parenting, a role he first took on when he got together with his partner Kerri. Close to 20 years younger than him, Kerri had a two-year-old daughter, Megan, from a previous relationship. Megan is 28 now. “What I learned from being adopted was that the most important thing is to give children time, but also to listen to them,” Kane says. When the couple decided to try to have children together, they talked about the “older dad thing”. He recalls the advice a friend gave him. “Somebody told me, ‘Alex, don’t worry. A man in his 20s could be fit and healthy and be knocked down by a car or get a disease. Don’t let being older be a barrier to happiness and a barrier to the relationship. And remember your own dad and the change he made in your life.’”Their son Indy turned nine in July and their daughter Lilah turned 17 in October. Kane’s age – he is 71 – has made him put a high premium on the time he has with his kids. As a journalist and political commentator (he was formerly communications director of the Ulster Unionist Party), his freelance life makes it possible for him to navigate around their schedules. Alex Kane says he never prioritises work over his children, Lilah and Indy. Now 17 and nine, they are pictured here a number of years ago. “I make a point of going to school with them – leaving them off and picking them up. I make a point of weekends together. I never prioritise work before them. I do that because I know I could drop down tomorrow or live another 20 years. I want them to have the time I’m here and remember the things we did. The chances of me watching them grow up to become parents or get married ... if I get to that stage I will be extraordinarily lucky. So I prioritise the time now.” He loves the adventures the kids have dragged him on – he climbs trees, runs down beaches, and goes boulder-hopping in rivers. “If I hadn’t had the kids, I’d probably just be a fat slob somewhere. They keep you on your toes. I would much rather spend my time with my children than do other things.”He believes that every parent has hardships, “whether you’re a 20-year-old parent or 71 years old, it doesn’t matter. The challenges are in essence exactly the same.”“I got my knees done. I’ve a six-year-old who loves running”For Dublin business owner Ciarán O’Sullivan, 51, the decision to have children a little later in life stemmed from his general ambivalence about becoming a parent at all. “I was footloose when I was 25,” he says. “I partied hard. I was much more selfish. I didn’t care about anything else but a few pints on the weekend and even during the week. I played golf. I worked hard. I love children – I come from a big family in Blanchardstown – but I always gave them back.”O’Sullivan got together with Eimear when he was in his 30s. He would notice at friends’ barbecues that he would be asked about his plans. “They’d say, ‘When are you two getting married? When are you two having kids?’” Family members also looked on. “I won’t say the pressure was immense, but it was a part of it.” Ciarán O'Sullivan and his wife Eimear, pictured with their 'funny and mischievous' son Cameron After the couple married in 2018, they began trying for children, feeling lucky they didn’t have to go down the IVF route and grateful their status as an older couple with good careers gave them a steady footing financially. “We all know what it’s like for a young couple to get a mortgage. I count my blessings that we have a nice house, we’re not short of a few quid.”Their “funny, mischievous” son Cameron, born in August 2020, has changed O’Sullivan’s way of life entirely – from his social life to his knees. “My cruciates were gone, so I got my knees done. I got the first one done 30 years ago. When I went back, he [the doctor] said, ‘Why are you getting it done?’ I said, ‘I’ve a six-year-old who loves running and loves me running after him, so I want to be able to do that.’” As for socialising, “Now I don’t even open a glass of wine at the weekends. I don’t think I’ve played golf since he was born.” He doesn’t miss those carefree days. “I’m not a reluctant dad. Some friends of mine are still doing what they did 20 years ago. I like a good night out now and again, but my focus is on not waking up hungover.” Being a couple in their late 40s and early 50s comes with some rueful acknowledgments. “I do regret not having a second and maybe even a third for Cam,” O’Sullivan says. But he doesn’t dwell on it. “We’re blessed with what we have. We love him to bits.”“There was no one depending on me before. Now there is”Declan McCarthy, 58, grew up the eldest of eight children in west Cork. In his 20s, he ran the family’s busy pub in Baltimore and then – after the pub was sold when he was 36 – he became a festival programmer, working on behalf of the Skibbereen Arts Festival and the Baltimore Fiddle Fair. He thought for a long time he wouldn’t have children. “I assumed all that had passed me by,” he says. “I’d always wanted to have kids but it wasn’t going to happen for me, and I was okay with that.” Then, in 2015, he met Michelle. They married and had their first child Liam when McCarthy was 53, and their second son Tadhg, when McCarthy was 56. Because of the gap in ages between them – he is now 58; she is in her early 40s – he feels that the decision around having kids was largely for Michelle to make. “For her a lot more thought went into it, to commit to having kids with someone who, by the nature of things, I’ll be gone before her,” he says. “I’m maybe not going to see grandchildren. I’m not going to be around as long as if I had the kids when I was 20 or 30.”Declan McCarthy says he thought the opportunity to have children had passed him by The couple are based in Norway – halfway between Oslo and Bergen – where Michelle is in the final year of her five-year PhD degree, and the kids are in kindergarten. The flexibility of their schedules means they’re able to support each other when the other needs it. “This year Michelle’s in the last year of her PhD, she needs time,” McCarthy says. “So I get up with them first. She’s writing stuff, up and gone out of the house mad early, six o’clock, so I do the breakfasts. And it’s fine. I am conscious of being an older dad – that it’s not as easy in some ways, but in other ways it’s easier.” When he meets new people there, he doesn’t get hung up on their perceptions of him. “Someone might say, ‘Is that your first kid?’ Because I’m old enough to be a grandfather. I have friends who are grandparents. I don’t care what people think. I go to Liam’s classes, and I’m by far the oldest parent – most are people in their late 20s or early 30s. But I don’t mind that, and certainly so far the boys aren’t aware of that.” For McCarthy, there’s a simplicity to how life is organised now that is clarifying. “Your life does become for your kid, doesn’t it?” he says. “I went to see Lyle Lovett play Celtic Connections two years ago. He spoke about becoming a dad at the age of 63. The way he spoke about his twins was so moving. The best thing that’s ever happened in his life was becoming a dad. I think it’s the same for me. There are times when you wish you had more patience or energy – at times you struggle with sleep. But it’s amazing.”He has made changes in his life purely for his children. “They made me stop smoking. I was a heavy smoker all my life. I want to be around as long as I can for them. There was no one depending on me before. Whereas now there is.”