"Creaking with a Crawler"

We are a durable clan. Not as zealous as the Scotsmen from "Braveheart," not as purposeful as the folk song progeny that Dylan would write about, yet we are older parents and we are proud.

As I embrace the big "40" with a two year old daughter and another on the way, I look for comfort in kindred souls, albeit venerable ones. In the southern part of Atlanta where I live in Fayette County, there are plenty like me. We stand tall with the help of Advil. We beam brightly knowing we have already paid off dentist bills for the caps on our teeth. And we are finally, starting families.

Growing up in different parts of the south, my wife and I, spent most of our fertile lives breaking tradition: not marrying young, not multiplying young and maybe the most blasphemous of all, not buying Ford. In regions of Georgia and South Carolina, where people value God, honesty and a good Sears lawnmower above all else, my wife and I have each lived one life and now have started a second, with baby.

There are lots of others out there like us too. Maybe we are just a responsible bunch, realizing that you should take care of alot of important things in life before tackling the weighty responsibility of child rearing. Or, maybe we are the opposite--simply selfish--putting off our paternal urges til the very last moment. Forget the ticking biological clock, this one is rusting as we have defied the one thing that we can leave with the world, a descendant.

It took one simple incident to make me realize I was a little old to be starting as a father. One night after laying my sleeping daughter in her crib, I woke her up again; simply by standing up. The noise from my crackling knees jolted her awake. I guess enthusiasm and experience can only take you so far.

In a culture where youth rules yet experience pays, which makes the most sense in the realm of parenting? The young charge as the old invest. The young giggle as the old smirk. The young speed as the old warmup the engine first. What the young can accomplish with zeal, the old can accomplish with calculation. Where the young travel with fervor, the old tread with care. The young drag baby by the hand, sometimes arriving at maturity together. The old have nanny carry baby, ultimately though, learning a new kind of maturity themselves. Children are adaptive, they thrive in either environment.

I smile at all the other older parents I meet in Fayette county. We share stories of waitresses who mistake us as grandparents. We laugh at being able to board airplanes early, not knowing if it is due to baby's age or our own. We do the math in our head, realizing we will be retirement age when faced with the daughter who wants a navel ring or the son who wants a tatoo, doubting those things will even be in vogue when the time comes. As I drive my golf cart through Peachtree City, taking my daughter to the park or, to feed the ducks, I realize this mode of transportation has become much more practical than fashionable.

We are a durable clan, old parents. Given the weight of the circumstances, we will have to become more durable yet. No matter what the advantages or disadvantages though, success comes through letting go of our experience and going with our natural intuitions. The control freaks that we are, we as older parents need to just let go and enjoy.

It reminds me of author Katherine Harrison who said she spent her whole childhood desiring that her parents would love her unconditionally. Yet, she only realized as an adult with kids of her own, that children are the only persons capable of possessing unconditional love. It is their very lack of experiences and their true innocence that allows them to love us perfectly, even in our imperfection. As old and worn, it has come along at just the right time.

Billy Murphy 10/13/97