may 1, 2011 Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Happy Birthday, Daddy!
And for your birthday, this morning I woke at around 4:30AM for a diaper change and feeding, to find Becky's umbilical cord stump had fallen off! Last night when we were going to bed and I changed her, it was about 1/2 way unhooked. I guess the moving and rubbing of night time feeding, burping, and consoling had rubbed it off. It's her 6th day of life today, and by the looks of her belly button, I think it came off a little premature, but only by a day or so.
I'm glad because it will allow me to make these diapers that are a little bit too big work a little bit better!

Like all of my children, she's very aware of her daddy's voice. She's nice and alert anyway, looking at brighter areas and studying whatever she can see. But nothing can turn that girls' head like a word from her daddy's mouth.

I tease him and give him the ole "it's not fair" bit about how I carried her for 9 months and labored for 11 hours, only to amount to a food source... but really, I think it's super sweet. I love watching him with our babies.

So, today's plans are to go to Laurel to let each kid get a little something for daddy's birthday, and pick up some extra craft items so they can all make him something, and decorate cards. Then mommy will make a nice dinner, and the kids will help make a brownie cheesecake.

With hubby's birthday arriving, I've began wondering about people's views on older fathers. There's a socially acceptable cut off age range for mothers to be pregnant, and that's usually in their early 40's. Late 40's and above women who get pregnant not only are medically outcast, but socially gawked at. Women at this stage in life are approaching menopause and not only are recommended to not have babies by their doctors, but are questioned as to how well they will carry, deliver, and take care of the demands of a baby.

But I've never really heard much about the age expectations of a father. Aside from the kind of creepy 75+ year old new daddy, with his 29 year old new mommy wife, there's just not a lot of focus on the age of the father when a new baby arrives.

"What do Strom Thurmond, Mick Jagger, Luciano Pavarotti and Rupert Murdoch have in common?

They all fathered children after the age of 55.

Actually, if you exclude Mick Jagger, who fathered a child merely at 55, the others all did it after the age of 65. Thurmond and Murdoch were actually over 70."  
-clip from HERE

And yet, without there being any kind of guideline or expectation of the 'cut off' age for a man to father a child, like there is for a woman, my husband still gets comments from others about how he should 'stop reproducing' because he's getting old. He falls into the age range of when women are expected to stop getting pregnant, so I suppose it could be related. "Women stop in their early 40's- you should too".
On the flip side of that, I'm far from 40, therefore should it matter how old he is?

What age is expected for a man to stop fathering children? Why is it they are able to continue reproducing when womens' bodies stop? What age do you think men should stop having babies?