Isn't Paul McCartney kind of old to be making more babies?

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

Is it wrong of me to think that the Beatles are too old to be having babies?

Paul McCartney is a father again at 61. His oldest child is 33. His stepdaughter from his first marriage to the late Linda McCartney is 39. His new wife, Heather Mills, is 35.

Maybe ages don't mean anything, but just think how people would react if the news was of a famous woman having a baby at 61.

People would say it wouldn't be fair to the child for her to be pushing 80 when the child is just finishing high school.

Can you imagine Yoko Ono announcing she was a mom again? Not many people would be singing "I Feel Fine" about that.

This could give a whole new meaning to Beatles songs, like when Mills starts going around the house singing "Help!"

My girlfriends have mixed feelings about Sir Paul being a pop again, especially the ones around the age of his new wife. Those feeling their biological clocks ticking can see why she would want a Beatle baby. It's for her, they say.

She's even emerging as a symbol of hope for women who think they might never have children. She became a mother even after suffering cancer of the uterus and two ectopic pregnancies during her marriage to Alfie Karmal.

Good for her, I guess. She's longed for a baby for years. She married a much older man, and she knew her chances were slim for having a family.

I just can't help but think McCartney would be better suited to singing lullabies to grandchildren instead of more offspring of his own.

With couples marrying later and having second families, delaying child-bearing is a fact of life. It can be a wonderful thing. Older parents often have the benefit of experience and maturity.

But isn't being a new parent at 61 a little selfish and immature?

Isn't part of parenthood supposed to be about being there to guide a child through life? Who wants their old man to really be an old man?

I can even accept the double standard society has about there being an age limit for women having children. That's more about biology than ethics.

I don't think women should lie about their age to qualify for infertility programs (like the 63-year-old California woman who in 1997 became the world's oldest mom.)

It is strange, though, that nobody led a media campaign accusing actor Tony Randall of competing to be the world's oldest dad when he fathered his first child at 77.

Society kind of said, "more power to him," the same way sports commentator Frank Gifford, who's almost 70, gets winks about having young children, and fans reacted with joy about 68-year-old opera icon Luciano Pavarotti having a baby with a girlfriend half his age.

It's not that I think we need some sort of public or social policy saying what age is too old to have children. That would be dangerous.

But so is losing perspective in the pursuit of "having it all."

Tanya Bricking writes about relationships for The Advertiser. Reach her at tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8026.