I believe it is totally unacceptable when elderly couples have children. Not only is it highly likely that those children will be orphaned at a young age, but it also means that their fate, their health care, education, upbringing and emotional security are left totally up to chance.
Only when fate denies a couple children early in life and through no fault of their own can that be acceptable.
A case in point is what was recently reported from Pakistan, where an 80-year-old woman announced that she was four months pregnant. The doctors said that the delivery could be problematic due to the woman’s advanced years. As for her husband, he is 85 years old and doesn’t mind this or any other children that his elderly wife can bear.
The news item was published in some international papers. But what neither these nor our own paper printed are the stories of hundreds of thousands of children born to aged Saudi fathers by their young mostly non-Saudi wives. All through their childhood they are saddled with a father who is at least 70 or 80 years older.
I heard a story a few days ago in Riyadh where a child of six had a mental breakdown when his father, a senile man of 90, became hysterical and started throwing glass bottles at the boy, loudly cursing and hitting him. Only God knows what that boy’s future will be like or what the state of his mental health will be like.
This desire to have children for fun without a shred of responsibility for that child’s upbringing or insuring its future is pure selfishness on the part of the husbands. These children will very likely suffer a multitude of social and mental problems, especially when they see a natural family where children play with their young fathers full of health and vitality, talking with them and treating them in a way that is completely unlike an elderly person’s.
The problems will only increase once the child enters his teens and becomes inclined to mischief, because his father is not able to keep track of his son’s life to influence or contain him. Nor will the son share his troubles or thoughts, which are all related to modern life, concerns that the father will know nothing about. That is provided of course that the father is still alive when his son gets to that age, for in most cases the father dies while the child is still in his infancy. The child is left fatherless, to face the trials and tribulations of life alone, and becomes inclined toward deviance, homelessness and crime. His problems become even more complicated if his mother is non-Saudi and takes him out of the country. The files of the Interior Ministry are full of such situations and the ensuing problems.
It is the height of selfishness and cruelty for an elderly father or couple to bear children without a thought for their children’s future.
Arab News Features 18 July 2003
