For an Old Dad With Young Kids, Quality Years Count

I am an old dad trying to keep up. My hip is out of cartilage. So is the knee, rebuilt 30 years ago when surgeons used hammers and chisels. The ribs and shoulder never got over last year’s bike accident.

I freeze up like the Tin Man when it rains.

Sometimes I do that little “uhhh’’ grunt thing when I stand up.

If this were 200,000 years ago, the predators would be gnawing on my bones.
It is all part of the natural process of falling apart and dying. And I’m good with it except for this one thing.

When my friend greets his daughter, he gives her a hug and then does likewise with the son-in-law.

When I greet my daughter, I pick her up and go, “uhhh.’’

That is, of course, after she squeals, “Daddy, Daddy’’ and jumps up with her hands outstretched.

I’m no Tony Randall, who took up fatherhood in his mid-70s, or Saul Bellow, who produced his fourth child at 84.

But by the time she graduates from the Winter Park IB program and heads off to her rightful place in Gainesville to follow in her dad’s Gator footsteps, I’ll be living in The Villages, ranting against socialism and raiding what’s left of the Medicare trust fund for new joints.

As for now, she’s in second grade. Her sister is in middle school.
One listens to Lady Gaga and the other to Taylor Swift. But in the Subaru we all listen to Exile on Main Street.

When they complain, I crank it up and prattle on about the sorry state of music today.
There are varying opinions on a 56-year-old dad who has two children with a combined age of 20.

One holds that they will resent me because I will not have the energy or inclination to do all the things that the young dads do with their kids. They will be robbed of romping and roughhousing and being tossed in the air. They will be embarrassed to have a dad who looks like their friends’ granddads.

Just when they graduate from the University of Florida law school and are ready to cash in on the needless pain and suffering of others, they’ll have to come home and clean dribble off my chin for free.

They will lose their dad – and their children will be without a granddad – far too soon.
For all the celebration over their achievement, for all the hope they spread among geezers far and wide, Saul Bellow and Tony Randall left very young children behind when they died.

Was that fair to them?

Would not being born at all have been fairer?

The other side of this debate is that I am more financially and emotionally mature. I’ve done my partying, done my cave diving, done my Appalachian Trail hiking. I don’t have time for a midlife crisis.

My kids have no competition. They are not subject to any resentment. It’s all about them. I yell at them, console them, counsel them, play with them and worry incessantly about them.

I ride the Hulk three times in a row with the oldest before we move on to Dragon Challenge.

I do the voices for the younger one’s stuffed animals. Much to her delight, they are a neurotic and argumentative bunch, particularly the Webkinz reindeer that insists he’s a moose no matter how many pictures she shows him.

This is what a 60-year-old Australian father said about his 7-year-old son: “He has brought my life into a simple focus, and caring for him is my priority.’’

Older parents can’t match our younger peers in quantity of years, so we focus on quality.
Still, I often do the math in my head.

If I live to be 80, they’ll be ...

And then I factor in substituting canned black beans and low-sodium V-8 for hamburgers and French fries.

That gets me to bouncing grandkids on my artificial knees.

Throw in exercise and quitting journalism, and I’ll have them listening to the Rolling Stones.

Native Floridian and longtime Orlando columnist Mike Thomas is a freelance writer.