Every time a celebrity welcomes a new child the world gets ecstatic. The idea of our favorite stars being happy and increasing their families is always a reason to rejoice. However, sometimes the news can be a bit odd to process. That’s the case with elder parents like Robert De Niro, who at 79 years old, has recently welcomed a baby girl or his pal Al Pacino (83) who is one month from welcoming his fourth child with current 29-year-old girlfriend Noor Alfallah.
Al Pacino’s rep confirmed the ‘happy’ news after it was leaked on TMZ. The actor has been dating Noor Alfallah since 2022 and according to the rep, she’s eight months pregnant, meaning that the baby can come any time soon. Not only does this make us wonder how it is still normalized in Hollywood (and the world) that old men keep dating quite young women, but how little old fatherhood is questioned.
How Old Is Too Old to Be a Father?
Naturally, the first answer to this question would be as long as biology makes it happen, there’s no age limit to becoming a parent, especially for men, who can father kids very late in their lives. Al Pacino and Robert De Niro aren’t the only ones, we have celebrity examples like Mick Jagger, who had his eighth child in 2016 at age 73.
So, biologically speaking, there’s no impediment for an elder man to father a child. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not risky. With time, the quality of sperm decreases due to a huge range of factors that can include radiation, altered testosterone levels, bad nutrition, or simply old age.
So, if one of those already deficient swimmers manages to fertilize an egg, it could result in danger to the baby to be since this ‘defective’ sperm has a high chance of containing DNA mutations. Although not all mutations will represent a health issue to the baby, studies have proven that many conditions such as dwarfism, schizophrenia, autism, or even some types of cancer increase in babies conceived o elder fathers.
Now, that’s the medical and scientific part of the question; how about the social and emotional part? Let’s face it, time is a b***h, and although there’s no certainty how much time we’ll be in this life, odds are the children of very old parents will experience their loss at a young age. If life is extremely good, a child born of an 80 year-old-parent, will likely lose their dad before their 20s.
Is it responsible? Bringing a child into the world is an immense responsibility that should lie on both sides, the mother and the father. It would be easy to assume the child won’t be left alone because, logically speaking, the mother is way younger than the father, but why would you bring someone into the world to let them at such a young age?
In my opinion, it’s utterly selfish! Forget about celebrities, probably these kids already have their lives sorted out economically speaking, but what about normal people? Or is this a celebrity trend? I don’t think so. While it’s true that age shouldn’t impede experiencing life at its most whenever we feel ready to, it’s also true that one must be responsible for our decisions, and having a child should contemplate the overall life we’re going to give them even when we’re not going to be around anymore.
