Older Dads, Older Sperm...

Paul Raeburn had a great post the other week up at HuffPo on older dads on the campaign trail. Yep, Sen. Christopher Dodd, 63, has two daughters, age 6 and 2, with his second wife Jackie Clegg Dodd. And Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, 65, has two toddlers with his second wife, Jeri Kehn.

What exactly do we read in these tea leaves?, asks Paul. First, that these two candidates mirror a demographic trend. Older fathers are on the rise. That's not too surprising. But here's the rub: the children of older fathers face particularly high risks of schizophrenia and autism. Drrr. On a personal level, I hate hearing that stuff. But do check out Paul's post. Paul is a journalist who writes quite smartly about various permutations of contemporary fatherhood. I keep trying to get him to guest post here, and sense that one day soon, he will!

Also on the dad front, check out Judith Warner's response to Charlie LeDuff's essay in Men's Vogue, which she titles"Daddy Wars," and which begins like so:

"One of the more pleasant outcomes of the slowly growing trend toward highly involved fatherhood has been, I’ve found, the ability to plainly see that total ninnyishness is not a uniquely female thing." Read more.

(Photo cred)