A newspaper article detailed the high numbers of men in their 40s having their first children, and how Seattle and Portland, Oregon have some of the highest rates of such men in the country.

The article focused on one such man. He only wanted one kid, he said, because he didn’t want other kids making fun of how old he was to his kids.

Being a newspaper article, this point was presented without an opposing viewpoint, with every indication that this is a common and respectable viewpoint. So, is it? So, it is.

But so it so, so isn’t!

As someone who just had a second child in his 50s, here’s my meandering reasoning as to why.

How old was your Dad when you were born?

As one’s mind consults the archives and lays the groundwork for the math…. As one’s face registers the immediate emotions entailed by the implications of such a question…. As you try to anticipate where this line of questioning is leading, one is distracted by the instantaneous assertion that such a question is not terribly relevant to who you are and what type of relationship you have had with your Dad.

Although it’s true that one day you stumbled across the enlightening exercise of ascertaining how old was your father when you were born, and how does that inform your sense of self as you approach or pass that same age?

Took a long time to get to that question in my case. I was in my 20s when I began to wonder how old my Mom and Dad were when my siblings and I were forced kicking and screaming into this vale of tears.

Anyway, it was a long time ago. Was it like we were using the same technology, like we wanted the same things from life, and expected the same future for the world? Not really.

We had the bedrock belief that, since the ’60s, the world had changed and it had become much harder for the twain of the first half of the century (i.e., our parents) and the twain of the ’50s onward to meet.

Now, the ’60s and ’70s– that had nothing on the ’00s and ’10s we’re witnessing nowadays.

The gap between my parents and their children was a pothole compared to the washed-out bridge between the likes of newspaper-reading, 6:00 evening news-watching, CD-playing, letter-writing, used bookstore-shopping me and people just a little (say, 20 years) younger who do not read newspapers, watch TV shows when they come on without a thought to taping them, and read e-books.

Twenty years, nowadays, is far more than long enough to establish a decisive difference between the world I have lived in and the world my kids will live in. I will know that from experience, as a fact, but my kids will recognize that in their bones and blood as a deep existential reality, a deeper level even than experience.

They will know how old I am, and, as children, in their childish minds, they will find it hilarious and ridiculous. If I was 30, it would be all that. If I am 50 or 60, it couldn’t be much more humorous, on the same level of humor as my old-fashioned hair and clothes and the bizarre stories I’ll tell.

Trivia– that’s all. Being 50 sometimes seems like a big deal to me, because I know where I’ve been and I know what it means, but my kids aren’t going to be interested in that for a long, long time.

Why should they be the first kids to take a keen interest from a young age in the individual lives of their parents?

The age of the father is just another minor piece of trivia to a child, not a decisive factor as to whether someone should ever have been born or not.

They will have their own lives and their own world to preoccupy them first and foremost. Then, maybe someday, in a quiet moment, they’ll think about what it might have been like for their parents to have reached the point where they decided the time had come to take their place between generations and place their hope and trust in their children who would be as unique as they are, as uncannily the same, as unimaginably different.

The exact age differences in a family might have seemed important once, to someone, but as the years go by, the trivial numbers fade and disappear.

If it’s a good group of people, nine will make the messes and one will clean up. That’s in a good group, and most groups are good, but sometimes that one in ten becomes the one in twenty or the one who never showed up.

Rooming houses, apartment buildings, offices: all the same.

The one in ten often doesn’t like it, but cannot do otherwise than clean up after the nine who seem oblivious to the mess, the role they play in it, the injustice felt by that one, who most likely was the person in the triplex who week after week took out the common trash bins to the curb. And put them back– sometimes after four days, when no one else would.

If someone went up to one of the nine and asked, “What about the idea of ‘the one in ten?’ Are you ever that person?”

“Oh yeah! The guy who has to buy the birthday card for my dad because my brothers and sisters won’t?” he says. “I’ve known some other people in the exact same boat.”

It’s the greatest stretch I ever have to make, the idea that other people are more like me than I would think. As someone who does rare and special things, I am constantly aghast at the lack of recognition and tormented by the insignificance of those very things that are obviously of little to no import or significance.

But the nine need the one in ten.

For every one, there might well be another nine. To look at the other nine and not know how each is one in ten is to confront that fundamental ignorance in my own self that I so readily seem to see in others who are oblivious to the unique and esteemed vocation I have as a one in ten to them.

A husband, a wife, a three-year-old boy, a 2-week-old boy. a year-old dog: four agents of chaos, one agent of order.

The self-described agent of order has the self-appointed charge of trying to keep everything in reasonable order– wash the dishes, do the laundry, spot clean, manage the yard, put things away.

The other adult does most of the cooking and direct child care: dressing, undressing, cleaning, washing.

The three-year-old tears through everything and scatters it to every corner of the house and yard.

The latter two do so without complaint.

“If I didn’t pull these pots and pans out of the cupboard, they would stay there. If I didn’t wear all these clothes, nobody would.” I never hear that.

“If I didn’t dump these toys out in the living room, no one would ever put them away.” Never hear that.

“Why do I have to wash all the dishes, and collect the trash and put it outside in the bins?” I could ask, but that would negate the value of the job.

The value of the job is not so much in keeping a somewhat clean house, or staying busy, or having two presentable kids. The real value of the job is to contribute in the ways I’m naturally inclined, doing my thing as it is beneficial without it being any kind of deal, without pretending I shouldn’t have to do it, being grateful for the chance to be “a really useful engine,” helping the rest of the household to live their natural lives without stress, guilt, or apology.

Having a baby can really light a fire under a person.

We must fix things! Our children shouldn’t have to live in a world with blah blah blah blah blah.

Maybe I’ve got some kind of problem, but that hasn’t happened to me. It’s impossible to get emotionally invested in every ongoing calamity and future disaster, every nation imperiled by ISIS and climate change, every Mariner stranded on base.

Two sons: George and Oliver, who, I assume, will reach my current age and surpass it and every milestone along the way. Days and nights will come when they struggle in the world, alone, and pause to remember their folks, after I’m gone, after both of us are gone. That’s poignant.

I think of my folks that way, sad that Aimee and G. and O. will never know them. Maybe they’ll have grandkids who will never know them, but I remember visiting my family for Christmas, leaving them at the airport– sad scenes! Walking down the ramp onto the plane, elated to be my single solitary self again.

We took G. and O. to a local coffee shop the other day– O.’s first family walk– and got to talking about what, it seems to us, will be some of the dominant issues of life for a 21st century Seattle kid.

Changing technology. Not for me it wasn’t, but is it? Hardly a day goes by that a device doesn’t baffle me and remind me that my own software is inadequate for the challenges, tasks, and opportunities at hand for the digital native.

Safe to assume that G. and O. are going to see some crazy technology.

Changing demography. I didn’t grow up among people from every populated continent, but they will. I see people from all over the place, everywhere, every day, except maybe one place– Canada. What are they waiting for? What is their plan? When I see the Coast Guard ships and helicopters, I wonder…. Who are they looking for? Are we under threat? From where?

Canada?!?

I’ve been to Canada. Do not underestimate these people. They’re nice, but…. What if they snap?

Changing economy. Maybe Social Security isn’t going to survive much longer. As someone not far from collecting my share of that pie, I desperately hope to get that. I fully expect them to string me along and try to keep me waiting until I’m senile.

How G. and O. will be able to afford an education or a home or a weekly trip to PCC is beyond me.

Changing environment. The dry season began more than a month early this year– a MONTH. Good luck, Washington state flower, the rhododendron. Good luck, Mt. Rainier glaciers, Olympic rain forest.

Changing technology, changing demography, changing economy, changing environment, I wrote on a piece of paper.

I asked Aimee, how do you cut those 8 words in half? “Cross out ‘changing,'” she said.

Or, how do you reduce those 8 words by about 85%? Change “changing” to “change.”

The same things that have always been changing.

The rainbows have been nagging at me, because I did not deal with the gay marriage issue at all adequately in my last post.

With such a huge issue, it’s not enough to be in favor of something just because one wants to be in favor of it, because it seems like the right opinion. If other people have powerful and dissenting opinions, one cannot simply walk away from their arguments as if one cannot articulate an appropriately complex and sound counterargument.

Is it enough to say, “Jesus never talked about gays.” No, it’s not. Is it enough to say, “Sex wasn’t that important to Jesus, because He didn’t talk about it much.” No, it’s not.  He did tell that woman, “Don’t sin anymore.” (As He said to everyone.)

“Why not decide for yourselves what is right?” He said. There we have a decisive endorsement of the concept that one ought not be afraid to think for one’s self and come to one’s own conclusions. And if Jesus says, “Joe, explain yourself,” I’ll have the opportunity to explain myself and my argument will be judged on its merits. If my argument is insufficiently persuasive compared to another argument, let the better argument prevail.

Opponents of gay marriage and gayness in general have their arguments, and what pains me, as a Catholic, is that many visible and powerful Catholics are making flawed arguments.

As an American, and a Catholic, I take government seriously. In one of His more memorable episodes, Jesus looked at the coin and said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” As we give to the government what belongs to the government.

The government is entitled to legitimacy, to our respect for it as the legitimate governing body of our nation, and to our demands that it uphold its and our principles.

One of my demands on our government is that it protect and promote the welfare of everyone subject to its laws. On that basis, the government is obligated to allow and facilitate gay marriage. Clearly and simply, this is a civil rights issue. Complicate it however much, whoever wants to, it still comes back to that.

That the Catholic Church has opposed laws advocating civil protections for gays against discrimination has been incomprehensible and embarrassing to me.

One cannot wish away the sexual issues, though.

The beginning and end of this aspect of the issue is this: sex is meant for procreation.

Yes, it is.

Is that truly the beginning and end of this issue?

Oh no.

Sex might be an individual’s primary and most primal expression of individuality. (If it’s not, it’s near the top of the list.)

To use dichotomies for the sake of discussion, sex is a constructive force within one’s life, or a destructive force. Selfless vs. selfish.

If not a means of procreation, it is an ultimate expression of intimacy, acceptance, and trust that a human being is compelled toward as an essential part of the human experience. In such a case, sex is a positive and creative force expressive of the highest human dignity as experienced by that individual.

There is the letter of the law, and the spirit of the law, and in the spirit of human dignity, sexuality is one of the aspects of the human experience that is as much about soul as about body, soul and body being not two halves of a false dichotomy, but a whole.