# Modern Family - season 3, ep 24 - Call Me Baby - May 23, 2012 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 24, 2012, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-family-season-3-ep-24-call-me-baby-may-23-2012/622961 "2012-05-24T15:51:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-family-season-3-ep-24-call-me-baby-may-23-2012/622961/61 "2012-05-26T20:42:00Z")
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**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-family-season-3-ep-24-call-me-baby-may-23-2012/622961/62 "2012-05-26T21:55:07Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > It’s true that a 19 year old father doesn’t have any guarantee of living to see the kid through high school, but the odds are definitely in his favor; Jay’s in his late 60s and if he does see the child to college he’ll be in his mid 80s. > > If Jay were 45 or even 55 it wouldn’t be as much of a problem, but he’s at least 65, probably closer to 70. I can rattle a list off the top of my head of easily a several famous men who fathered children at that age or older (Tony Randall, Jacques Cousteau, Charlie Chaplin, Anthony Quinn, Yves Montand, etc.) and none of them lived to see their youngest grown. (Strom Thurmond and Kevin McCarthy did, but, they’re the exception.) Dying is not a failure to be a good father. Some people’s fathers die when they are young. It’s part of the tapestry of human experience. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-family-season-3-ep-24-call-me-baby-may-23-2012/622961/63 "2012-05-26T22:32:22Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Dying is not a failure to be a good father. Some people’s fathers die when they are young. It’s part of the tapestry of human experience. My father was not old and died when I was young- I didn’t particularly blame him for that. Based on his age when I was born (39) it was reasonable he would live to see me grown. However, having a child when the odds- whether due to age or illness or your line of work- do not favor you being there to raise him/her to adulthood shows a definite lack of concern, basically saying “well, not my problem”. (This is why Christopher Reeve and his wife elected not to have another child, incidentally, which turned out to be a good thing since she also died early; Robert Duvall also said that he told the young women he dated after he was in his mid-50s that he had no interest in having children he wouldn’t live to see to young adulthood at the most if he lived _that_ long.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-family-season-3-ep-24-call-me-baby-may-23-2012/622961.md?page=3)