Are Pacino and De Niro being ‘selfish’ by choosing older parenthood?

Two weeks ago, a great battle ensued on Twitter. A two-option poll went so viral it must have made the original poster want to throw all their wifi-enabled devices into a large body of water. The question was simple: who was hotter, young Robert De Niro or young Al Pacino? Three-hundred-thousand votes later, the result was an exact 50/50 split. Yet, looking at the news over the past week, you would be forgiven for thinking that the battle had been taken up by the Hollywood legends themselves, with recent headlines suggesting that both Pacino and De Niro are determined to win the tie-break and prove they’ve still got it. And by “it”, I mean full use of their reproductive functions.

Within days of the poll closing, De Niro announced that he had become a father for the seventh time, at the age of 79. Then, just two days ago, it was revealed that Pacino’s 29-year-old girlfriend, Noor Alfallah, was pregnant, making Pacino an expectant father at the age of 83. The immediate and immoderate online reaction to this news seemed to bear out the old adage that you either die a Scorsese hottie, or live long enough to see yourself become the protagonist of thousands of internet think pieces about male fertility. Yet, one of the things that seems to have got lost in all the pontificating about “biological clocks”, gendered expectations, and age gap relationships (the internet’s favourite divisive topic), is what it is actually like being an older parent.

Part of this gap in discussion might be because even the term “older parent” is contentious. In 2020, the average age of mothers in England and Wales was 30.7 years, and the average age of fathers was 33.7 years. So, should everyone over these ages be regarded as “older parents”, or only those adding decades to the averages? Even if we take Pacino’s 83 years as a clear case of pushing reproductive functioning to its limits, it’s far from the only case. The oldest confirmed father – Australian Les Colley – was 92 and 10 months when he had his ninth child with his third wife. But this fact naturally brings in an inevitable gendered aspect, as it seems safe to assume that Colley’s third wife was just a tad younger. This begs the question, if nonagenarian men can biologically bear children, but women in their late thirties are classed as “geriatric” on their medical notes, what do these terms even mean? At what point should someone be classed as “old”, or even “too old”?

Aside from confusion and dispute over terms, another reason why the lived experience of “older parents” seems to get left out of debates may be due to the fact so many people seem to have strong opinions about parenting later than “average” – even “parenting specialists” often seem to jump from questions of biology to questions of ethics at rapid speed. For example, when I asked child and behavioural expert Amanda Jenner whether the age of parents has any effect on children’s development or behaviour, she was quick to declare that she thought Pacino “selfish”. Judging by the reactions I’ve seen to the news stories about De Niro and Pacino this week, it seems this is a common feeling, rooted in much the same reasons Jenner gave: “The child is never going to hit special milestones they can share with their father, and this can carry a weight on the child for all their lives.” Of course, given general life expectancy trends in the UK and US, it seems common sense to assume that becoming a parent after 60 may reduce the years a father or mother gets to spend with their child. Yet, this is not only overly simplistic, but potentially harmful. The same narrative of “selfishness” seems to bleed out into discussions about people becoming parents at 50, 40, and even at 35. To my mind at least, this narrative seems to have social judgement at its heart, rather than the best interests of unknown, even hypothetical children.

The second issue is that, while the average age of mothers has stayed fairly consistent in the UK since the millennium – with the largest age group to register births being 30 to 34 – the number of people in the UK becoming parents later than average is increasing. In 2000, just 663 babies were recorded as having been born to women aged 45 and over, but in 2018 this had soared to 2,366 babies – an increase of 71.9 per cent. Over the same period, the number of women under the age of 20 giving birth dropped by 58.6 per cent. In part, these shifts are because an increasing number of young people are indeed prioritising the ability to provide stable care-giving over any social or biological “imperative” to have children in their twenties, when, thanks to the policies of successive Conservative governments, many are saddled with debt and living in temporary rented accommodation. Data from Moneyfarm in March 2022 calculated the cost of raising a child to the age of 18 in the UK at somewhere between £129,000 and £327,000.

Of course, another factor here is technological and medical advances, such as IVF, which – while also financially restrictive for many – allow some people to conceive later in life than was previously possible. For example, while parents who are 60-plus remain statistical outliers, data published recently by the Office for National Statistics showed the number of births to 50-plus women has quadrupled over the past two decades.

In this landscape, the moralising tone of contemporary fertility debates seem out of step with the realities of the modern world. Jenner went on to qualify her initial response, telling me that “older parents are wiser and more patient, and some may be more financially stable”. She also noted that she had worked with “amazing fathers in their late sixties with younger children” whom she described as “brilliant parents”. So, away from the moralising narratives and statistics, how do people who become parents later than average actually feel?

Professor Peter Lewis was 28 and 30 when his first children were born. “Twenty-five years and a divorce later, I had two more children with my partner, now my wife,” he tells me. “When our second daughter was born, our combined age was 106 – I was 61.” Now in his late eighties, Professor Lewis sounds simply grateful and full of love for his children. “I am touched by their evident concern to spend with me what time I have left.”

“I’m probably considered an old dad having become a father for the first time at 50,” Alan Lucas, an author and mental health coach tells me. “In many ways I’m glad I waited. I know I’m a much better dad than the 30-year-old version of me would have been.” His friends often joke that he’s “an ancient dad”, he tells me, but he insists: “I really don’t feel it. I keep myself fit and healthy so I have plenty of energy to play with my kids. My girls help me stay young in outlook and I feel like I’m being the best father I could ever have been.”

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Jamie Medhurst, a professor of media and communication at Aberystwyth University, is now 55 and has two kids – one 13, one coming up to 11 – and a 27-year-old stepdaughter. “I’d always wanted to be a dad,” Medhurst says, “but my ex-wife and I never had children.” After that marriage ended in 2005, Medhurst met his current partner, who’s 10 years younger and, at the time, had an eight-year-old child. This kind of “blended family” is, of course, becoming much more common across the UK, and is just one of the reasons people are becoming parents later than in previous generations on average. Medhurst’s younger two children were born when he was 42, and 44. Once or twice his children’s friends would make comments about his age, and Medhurst says he’s also been referred to as “Grandad” a couple of times when he’s been out with his kids. “It hurt at first,” he admits, “but what’s interesting is that it doesn’t seem to happen now that they’re getting older – it was more when they were babies and toddlers.”

Now though, Medhurst has other concerns. Last year he had a melanoma removed. “Thankfully it hadn’t spread and I’m all clear now,” he tells me. “However, it did get me thinking about the fact that one downside of being an older dad is that you have less time with your kids ultimately. In a way you then want to make the most of every single day with them.”

David Murray-Hundley became a father at 40 and then again at 43. He and his partner had their first daughter via IVF, “so it took a bit of time”. Like Medhurst, one of his mental challenges about becoming a father in his forties was related to mortality – but not his own. “My dad died when I was 16 and he was 41,” Murray-Hundley tells me. “So 40 for me was a bit unexpected, as I had spent the rest of my life being pretty rock and roll about life.” Yet, he thinks his years of partying actually helped his parenting in the long-term. “My wife and I had lived great lives and done what we wanted, so didn’t feel like this was going to be a negative but a benefit.” Murray-Hundley says that becoming a father in his forties has changed what he cares about. Yet he also stresses that day-to-day, at the school gates and elsewhere, his age “feels normal”. “And I still managed to win the sprint at my youngest’s sports day,” he declares, “so I’m not that old!”

Of course, there is an unavoidable gendered aspect to this discussion, and to broader social judgements about what counts as “late” parenting. Women’s “body clocks” are still imagined as ticking timebombs, ready to blow at 35. Yet, while fertility rates for both women and men do decline after 35 – with sperm quality deteriorating rapidly as men age – there are also more fertility treatment options now than ever before. These may be costly and unpredictable, but they are also undeniably changing the reproductive landscape. IVF birth rates in particular are becoming ever more common – in 2019 they were three times higher than in 1991. With more and more women becoming mothers well into their late thirties and forties, general understandings about the “best time” to have children are having to play catch-up.

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Danielle Shugart had her first child at 41, after undergoing IVF. “Since I found the love of my life and married a few weeks before my 40th birthday, we started IVF as soon as we came back from our honeymoon,” she tells me. Now that her daughter is seven, Shugart says she does find the age gap between her and most of her “parent friends” tricky at times. “They are, on average, 10 to 15 years younger than me,” she notes. “In some ways, there is a chasm between us.” Yet, she has other “mum friends” who also went to fertility clinics and had a similar journey to parenthood as her. “It’s nice to have that bond with people,” Shugart says. All in all, she thinks having a child later in life is “great in many ways… Our family life is stable, I am able to be at home full time.” Like some of the “old dads” I spoke to, Shugart believes her extra years of experience were actually immensely valuable.

Ultimately, it seems discussions around age, fertility and mortality all really come back to one simple question: how to be the best parent possible. Like the De Niro / Pacino hotness poll, this question is both deceptively simple, and entirely subjective. This is made clear by Lisa McCarty, a mum of two and a Women’s Health Advocate for issues such as infertility, maternal health and breast health. “We had our first child at age 33 after a few years of fertility treatment,” she says. “When we were ready to try for our second, around age 35, I was already considered ‘geriatric’ in terms of pregnancy.” Yet, despite this medical moniker, and the four years it took to conceive her second child, she says her main concerns now, as a parent in her forties, are healthier and more fundamental than they were nearly a decade ago. “My priorities are focused less on doing this and doing that perfectly, and more just instilling kindness, love and good communication, and not stressing so much about milestones,” she suggests. “That is all to say, there are no rules of what age to become a parent,” McCarty stresses. “So do what’s best for you, follow your own path and don’t worry about what other people think of how old you are or how far apart your kids are in age. It doesn’t matter.”