At 51, I thought I was done with children. Life disagreed

Numbers have never been my friends. In high school, they doubled down on me, from cruelly aloof to full-blown, square-rooted bullies. Fractious and bracket-wielding, they beat me to within an integer of my life. I failed maths and maths failed me.

So when I learnt, in my 50s, that I could be a father for the third time, I felt mathematically challenged all over again. Factoring in my 12- and 14-year-olds, I spiralled through several dark nights of the soul. The calculations were simple enough, but they seemed endless. I’d be 64 when kid No.3 started high school. I’d be 70 by the time that kid could drive.

Mic Looby is experiencing life with a toddler all over again.Credit:

This surprise No.3 would start primary school as our last two finished high school. And to think my mum was considered slow off the mark when she had me, her firstborn, at 24. Now my partner, though six years my junior, was destined to be the grande dame of the labour ward, aged 45.

Before No.3 was totted up, I’d been settling in for what I imagined would be the relative ease of parenting a pair of teens. I was looking forward to merely worrying about their wellbeing, rather than being their full-time everything.

Reactions to our late-breaking baby news varied. When I shared a number of my fears with my sister, a mother of three teens, she just laughed and said: “You should have had all your kids in the allotted time.” As the teens might say, she was joking not joking. I preferred the sentiments of an elderly stranger greeting our newly arrived bub: “Well, isn’t he a lovely late lamb.”

To be dividing my time between a toddler and two teens, it does feel like life’s done a number on me. Going round again as a hands-on dad at my age is exhausting. At the very least, it’s a lot harder on the knees. It’s weirdly lonely too. Compared with the early days with young kids, it’s a different orbit altogether. I’m too old to feel a part of the youthful mum and dad crowd while being a million miles from the celebrity dads making babies and headlines in their dotage.

The thing with the toddler years is that we let go of the finer details – the stuff that really adds up. There’s the shovelling of porridge into a screaming mouth. The public meltdowns over the way we did or not do that thing with that thing. There’s the raging fever and the nurse on-call delirium in the dead of night. And all the other stuff that has us broken by bedtime, asking ourselves how we can possibly do it all again tomorrow.

There’s only one answer that makes sense at these times: We’ll do it because we have to. But within that sum total are the wonder-filled one-percenters. The oh-so-slow walks. The first encounter with a ladybug. The reward of a spontaneous hug. It’s swings and roundabouts, in many more ways than one.

Many parents whose kids are grown up will tell you they remember what those early years were like. But they don’t. Not really. They’ve moved on. To truly know what it’s like to have a tiny human who has your number day and night, you have to be right there, up to your aching knees and brain in the whole strange calibration. From here, at ground zero, I can report that toddlers mess with time and space itself. They pummel it and stretch it, like so much food and playdough. By the time the rest of the world is starting a regular working day, the toddler and all concerned have more than likely laughed, cried, won, lost, despaired and staggered ever onward, in so many crayon-scrawled parabolas.

At a distance, it’s easy to forget the logistics too. In our case, the toddler-and-two-teens life has returned us to the full-blown tag-team extravaganza. As a couple, we become parental ships in the night. With occasional hard-won coffees together. Otherwise, it’s a complex back-and-forth. You be here at that time. I’ll meet you there. You take that one, I’ll take this one. I race that way, hopefully in time for hand-over so you can race off thataway. And so on through the days and weeks and months. With occasional pauses for breathing and marvelling at how the hell single parents manage this time-and-motion mind-bender.

In recent years I have become acutely aware that the needs of toddlers and teenagers can be oddly similar while also wildly different. I remember our firstborn’s kindergarten teacher, who had three big kids of her own, muttering “little kids little problems, big kids big problems”. Now that I’ve got both, at the same time, I know that it’s not that simple. Ours are typical teenagers who, like so many others, have somehow navigated their way through pandemics and beyond. Their job descriptions don’t include free babysitting. But they love little No.3 and are making the most of their time together while also guarding their bedroom doors vigilantly.

Meanwhile, as an older dad, the playground has a different feel. Some parents I’ve met round the climbing frames have taken me for a first-time dad. Maybe they’re just humouring me. And some have looked from my little one to their older child, offering me world-weary wisdom about what I have in store. “Just you wait,” they say, shaking their heads. I remember the same thing years earlier, when I really was a first-time dad. Back then I found the advice infuriating. Like the people who see a firstborn bub and blurt: “So when are going to have another one?”

Experience has taught me not to give young parents the “just you wait” line. Sure, I know too much. I have teenagers. I have some serious K’s on the clock. But that mileage isn’t necessarily an asset. Not in this game, anyway. I’m convinced that the first time around as a parent, a big part of what gets you through is utter obliviousness: you have no idea what’s ahead. It might seem like a weird advantage, but it’s handier than you might think. I’m more inclined to tell new parents that, despite some bad press, teenagers are actually pretty ace. They turn into the best kind of share-house buddies — the kind who like cooking and impromptu board games and the same TV shows as you, while taking the piss out of you like nobody else.

Our household is full of odd numbers I never could have predicted, but I’m not scared of them any more. It’s a great place to be reminded of how quickly the years can add up, and how important it is to make them count. Third time around as an old man, I know how lucky I am to have a little one chalking up parenting memories I thought were long gone. The little bugger is coming up with stuff we would otherwise have lost. He’s only just got here and already what he’s added is incalculable. Never mind the maths – these are beautiful, countless moments.

Mic Looby is a writer and editor based in Melbourne.

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