For you men hoping to have a baby at a more advanced age, here are a list of your potential heroes: David Bowie (at 53), Mick Jagger (at 57), Michael Douglas (at 58), Rod Stewart (at 60), Paul McCartney (at 61), Eric Clapton (at 59), Pierre Trudeau (72), Charlie Chaplin (at 73), Saul Bellow (at 84), Pablo Picasso (at 68), David Letterman (at 56), Larry King (at 65 and 66), Woody Allen (at 51), Warren Beatty (at 62), Dennis Quaid (50) and Jack Nicholson (at 53)

Move over Octomom: We found a dad with 86 kids! And you think Octomom has her hands full. The aptly named Daad Abdul Rahamn claims to be the patriarch of the largest family in the world. The 63-year-old Dubai resident has 86 children–and two more on the way. [From The Mommy Files : Move over Octomom: We found a dad with 86 kids!] Yeah, having 86 kids is a lot, but it’s not like he gave birth to them all at once, or probably actively cares for them all – how could he? That’s so many kids, I doubt if he can remember all their names. I also don’t know if this statistic really says that much about his fertility…

This one hits closer to home since I was already 43 when w had our first. A recently released study finds that children of older dads score lower on IQ tests even after weighing socioeconomic factors. Australian and US researchers analyzed test results of more than 33,000 US born children born to fathers between the ages of 14 and 66. The tests included reasoning, concentration, learning, memory and speaking and reading skills, at eight months, four years and seven years. [From Fatherhood Examiner: Older Dads Father Dumber Kids?] The lead author, John McGrath says that he was surprised by the results, since a lot of the “blame” for DNA errors usually goes to older eggs in the...

Here’s a good article in the New York TImes about infertility and the couples who have to give up on fertility treatments, sometimes after trying for a decade or more. What I found especially interesting was the article’s take on infertilty as a kind of loss. The loss is as much for a baby they will never have as for the person they thought they would be. This is something that we all deal with as we grow older and learn we likely won’t be a rock star or president, but it particularly poignant when the thing you’re giving up is being a mom, or even a dad. “The person has to go through a process of mourning for what this was going to be in their life and...