New dad Robert De Niro in New York City on May 9, 2023. Photo / Getty Images
New dad Robert De Niro in New York City on May 9, 2023. Photo / Getty Images
Opinion by Michael Deacon
OPINION:
I can’t wait to be a grandad. Not that I mean to place undue pressure on my son. He’s only nine, so it’s possibly a little early for him to be thinking about marriage and children.
Still, fingers crossed. I’ve always thought that being a grandparent must be themost wonderful thing in the world. As far as I can see, it gives you all the best bits of having children – and none of the worst.
After all, you get to play with them, and spoil them, and hear the funny things they say. But then, after a couple of hours, you get to go home and relax, leaving their exhausted parents to deal with the mess and the meltdowns. Bliss. Then again, maybe I’m wrong.
Just look at Robert De Niro. He’s been a grandfather for donkey’s years. Evidently, however, he’s decided that it’s much more fun to be a dad.
Because he’s just announced the birth of his seventh child – a mere two months shy of his 80th birthday. Obviously I congratulate him on the happy news.
I admire his stamina. Not to mention his optimism. At the same time, though, I’m baffled. Raising a child is knackering enough in your thirties – never mind your eighties.
Has the man lost his mind? Surely at his time of life, you want to put your feet up. Not spend your every waking moment changing nappies and scrubbing sick off the sofa.
F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone became a father for the fourth time just three months before he turned 90. Photo / Marcelo Machado de Melo, Get
To be fair, men his age do tend to get up in the night quite a lot anyway, so perhaps it won’t make that much difference. But even so, I’d rather be woken by my bladder than some bawling banshee in a Baby-gro.
The strangest thing about this story, however, is that it isn’t unusual. On the contrary, countless male megastars find themselves suddenly seized by a craving to have children in old age.
Rod Stewart had a son at 66. Ronnie Wood had twins at 68. Richard Gere and George Lucas had sons at 69 (not together, I should add). Mick Jagger, meanwhile, became a father for the eighth time at the age of 73.
As a result, he has a child who is younger than his great-granddaughter. Most staggering of all, however, is Bernie Ecclestone. In 2020, the F1 supremo became a father for the fourth time – just three months before he turned 90.
Ordinary men don’t carry on like this. You never hear of a retired geography teacher siring a son at 76, or a binman fathering triplets at 83. So why do celebrities do it?
Especially when they could be enjoying the fruits of their fabulous wealth instead. If I were them, a child would be the last thing I’d want to squander it on.
No way would I swap a superyacht off the Seychelles for a soft-play area swarming with sugar-crazed six-year-olds. There must be some explanation.
Are they pressured into it? After all, their wives do tend to be around half a century younger than they are, and may be eager for children of their own. But I can’t believe it’s as simple as that.
Super-rich men aren’t easily bullied into doing anything against their will. So they must be eager for children themselves. To worn-out, 40-something dads like me, it’s baffling.
But then, we may be looking at it the wrong way. Perhaps these senescent celebrities want more children not despite their great age – but because of it. Put it like this.
You only get to be as successful as these men are if you’re powered by a relentless competitive drive. You’re a swaggeringly macho alpha male.
And you need everyone to know it. But if that’s the case, one thing is bound to terrify you in old age: the world deciding that you’re past it.
The mere thought leaves you clammy with fear. You need everyone to see you’ve still got it. That you’re still insatiably virile.
That, even though you prefer cocoa to cocaine, you’ve got the libido of a teenage rugby team. Well, there’s only one way to prove it. Have a baby. Whatever the reason, though, I’m not knocking it.
Columnists like me are always fretting about the West’s plummeting birth rate. The way Robert De Niro’s going, he’ll have it fixed by Christmas.
Michael Deacon is a columnist and assistant editor at The Daily Telegraph
