# I think my biological clock is ticking. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 31, 2007, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586 "2007-08-31T04:46:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586/1 "2007-08-31T04:46:15Z")
I’m a male, 22 years old. Every time I see a friend or a stranger that has a kid it makes me want to have a child. It is sort of a weird feeling because I didn’t feel this way at all a year or two ago. I’ve read older males who have children typically have more kids with birth defects and such. If I got a girl pregnant 3 years ago I would have wanted her to get an abortion, if it happened now though I would want her to definitely keep it. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586/2 "2007-08-31T04:49:13Z")
[QUOTE=pool] I’m a male, 22 years old. Every time I see a friend or a stranger that has a kid it makes me want to have a child. [/QUOTE] Ummm, dude … talk to your parents. NOW. ---
**Author:** ![2gigch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/2gigch1/32/3313_2.png) [@2gigch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2gigch1)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586/3 "2007-08-31T05:46:20Z")
Yeah, it’s ticking, and it’ll ring in about sixty years. You have tons of time. Go hang out near children of all ages (not in a creepy way) and see how you react around screaming, shouting, joy, anger, crying, jealousy and all the intensity of all ages. Now remember you can’t take a break from it, for say, forever, once you have your own. Be sure your prepared financially, as raising children under financial duress is no fun for everybody involved. Listen, kids are great, got three myself; one stepson as close as flesh and blood, my well planned son and an ‘oops’ daughter just 15 months behind my son. These kids are the best thrill ride of my life. FWIW I suggest you go adventure for awhile so you have some good stories to tell the kids while they are growing up - early to mid thirties is a great time to start your part of the circle of life. Biggest part of ‘no regrets’ is not messin up in the first place… ---
**Author:** ![bbs2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e495f1/32.png) [@bbs2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bbs2k)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586/4 "2007-08-31T05:47:58Z")
Forgive the play on words, but it isn’t your clock that ticking, it’s your brain not clicking. You’ve got plenty of time. Enjoy it. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586/5 "2007-08-31T07:28:48Z")
[Miroku] **Pool** , will you bear my children?[/Miroku] ---
**Author:** ![Campion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@Campion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Campion)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586/6 "2007-08-31T07:33:47Z")
[QUOTE=pool] I’ve read older males who have children typically have more kids with birth defects and such. [/QUOTE] I presume, o you fresh faced 22 year old, that you understand that by “older” you mean much, much older. Yes, paternal age over 40 is a risk factor in failure to conceive (due, they speculate, to increased wear and tear on the body), but even beyond that, men are still fertile for a long, long time. My little brother, who’s now 27 and nearly 6 feet tall, has been a bit ga-ga over babies his whole life. He’s torn, though – having a baby (at least in my family) generally means the whole marriage thing, which means he’d have to find a tolerable woman and hitch up with her, and then not leave her when she gets inconvenient. Fortunately, we now have two little nieces to spoil, so I think his clock has quieted down. ---
**Author:** ![dnooman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@dnooman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dnooman)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586/7 "2007-08-31T07:35:21Z")
Maybe you just have to poop? ---
**Author:** ![Solfy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Solfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Solfy)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586/8 "2007-08-31T13:50:55Z")
I think it’s sweet that a man can openly admit that he, too, has a clock. I’ll never forget when I realized my (now) husband had one. We were engaged at the time, and on a camping trip with my extended family. I was braiding the hair of a little cousin, about 3yrs old. The other women sitting around the fire pointed out the look on my fiance’s face as he watched me with the little girl - it was pure sappy longing. I’m a sucker for a guy who is a sucker for little kids. But we still waited another six years to have our own! Please, for the sake of your social life, enjoy the lack of being responsible for a helpless someone 24/7 a little longer. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586/9 "2007-08-31T13:59:17Z")
I suggest borrowing one, or preferably two, of those children from your friends for an extended weekend alone with Uncle Pool. It’ll give your friends a break, which they’ll love, and you’ll get to test out just how serious your biological clock is without actually creating another human being. Kids for a day are easy. Kids overnight and all the next day and another night and another day…well, that starts to give you a little tiny taste of parenthood. The hard part about parenting isn’t each individual moment. Most of those moments are easy. The hard part is that it Just. Never. Stops. So either you’ll be exhausted and overwhelmed and you’ll realize it’s a good idea to wait, OR you’ll love every moment of it and be terribly happy and you can get on with finding a mate who also wants kids. Either way, you’ll have a better sense of what you can handle right now. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586/10 "2007-08-31T14:08:36Z")
I’ve never heard that older men create children with birth defects. Women, sure…but not men. They can reproduce safely their entire lives. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586/11 "2007-08-31T14:15:51Z")
[QUOTE=Kalhoun] I’ve never heard that older men create children with birth defects. Women, sure…but not men. They can reproduce safely their entire lives. [/QUOTE] [Fightin’ dat ignorance.](http://www.vhi.ie/news/n250607b.jsp) > [@](#): > > A recent study carried out at a large Israeli army database found that children of men over 40 were 5.75 times more likely to have an autism disorder than those who had fathers under 30. Another Israeli study suggested that the risk of schizophrenia in children is almost double if the father is in his late 40s. > > Prof Sheena Lewis, a consultant in reproductive medicine at Queen’s University Belfast, said that as men get older their sperm DNA becomes more fragmented. By the time a man is 50, the cells that create a man’s sperm have replicated up to 800 times, creating many possibilities for error. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586/12 "2007-08-31T15:40:09Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] [Fightin’ dat ignorance.](http://www.vhi.ie/news/n250607b.jsp) [/QUOTE] Wow. Thanks for the link! I guess Larry King, Imus, Dave Letterman and the rest were runnin’ with scissors. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586/13 "2007-08-31T15:44:22Z")
[QUOTE=Solfy] I think it’s sweet that a man can openly admit that he, too, has a clock. /QUOTE] Me, too! But yeah, borrow a kid for the weekend and you may just be aching for a vasectomy, instead. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586/14 "2007-08-31T16:30:34Z")
I’m not planning on actually having any kids for a couple of years. I just think its weird that the urge is there, but it wasn’t just a couple years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Kuboydal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecb155/32.png) [@Kuboydal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kuboydal)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586/15 "2007-08-31T16:56:40Z")
I was oddly attracted to young mothers in my early to mid twenties. A trick of the hormones I suspect. At 33 that attraction is gone and the dob is more than enough to convince me children would drive me insane. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586/16 "2007-08-31T17:51:14Z")
My girlfriend teases me endlessly because I get gushy whenever I see little kids. Like ridiculously (I just wanna squeeze 'em! They are so cute!) She is hoping (I’[m kind of hoping too) that visiting my nieces this weekend will help cure me. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586/17 "2007-08-31T18:18:28Z")
I know the recent studies show that the risk of genetic disorders goes up, but isn’t the risk still in the low numbers? ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-my-biological-clock-is-ticking/417586/18 "2007-08-31T18:44:47Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > I know the recent studies show that the risk of genetic disorders goes up, but isn’t the risk still in the low numbers? In a word, yes. Here’s a good general article about it on [WebMD](http://www.webmd.com/parenting/features/guys-biological-clock) And here’s an abstract of a Canadian study, which gives the actual risk (indeed very small, but does increase – [link](http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1044-3983(199505)6%3A3%3C282%3APAATRO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z)): > [@](#): > > For example, the adjusted relative risk estimates for neural tube defects in the offspring were 1.2 (for fathers age 30-34 years relative to 25-29 years); 1.3 (35-39); 1.6 (40-44); 0.6 (45-49); and 2.3 (men 50 years and older). Men under 20 years of age were also at increased risk for fathering children with birth defects such as neural tube defects, hypospadias, cystic kidney, and Down syndrome. We hypothesize that among certain commonly observed birth defects a subgroup of cases may be due to new, unrecognized dominant mutations.