A 50-year old naturalist makes a discovery.
By Edward Kanze ’78
It’s one o’clock in the morning. I’ve fled to an outbuilding, a writing studio with a floor as cold as a skating rink. A woman has taken over my house.
Her stuff lies everywhere —makeup in the bathroom, underwear in the hamper; cheese in the fridge—jalapeno cheese. What’s more, her three-year-old son and 20-month-old daughter have overrun the place, too. Daily, they transform every room into an obstacle course of toys, books, baby bottles, sippycups, half-eaten food, shoes, and clothing.
How can this be so? At an age when my classmates are shipping kids off to college, jobs, and independence, toddlers rule my life.
But I have to admit, I asked for it. The woman is my wife, and the kids are mine, too.
I am not simply a 50-year-old father of two. I am a stay-at-home dad, a guy who kisses his wife good-bye in the morning and then sprints for the changing table. Secretions and egesta begin and end my days, with plenty of both in between. As my little daughter succinctly summed it up: “It happens, Dada.”
As a career change, having kids at midlife was a foolish move. My output as a writer and naturalist drifted into the horse latitudes—although, miraculously, I launched a new guiding business and got a fifth book into print. Now I’m completing a novel about Henry Hudson, by staying up late at night. Chiefly, though, my job description calls for buying groceries, cooking, feeding, remediating spills, dispensing fluoride tablets, washing bottles, refereeing conflicts, administering first aid, consoling, cajoling, scolding, shuttling, and washing dirty clothes in quantities incomprehensible to anyone who has not raised children.
My wife and I met on my 34th birthday; a little more than a year later, we married. Still, it took nearly 13 years and almost as many moves (Mississippi, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Australia, Tennessee, New York, Maine, and New York again) before we found the courage to attempt life’s most audacious leap.
We were lucky. When a man nearing 50 and a woman well past 40 decide to have a child, success is hardly assured. About the time we threw caution to the wind, Newsweek ran a cover story suggesting that we forty-somethings give up geriatric childbearing and adopt dogs instead. Stubborn as hounds, we forged on. Two miscarriages later, we conceived a little fellow determined to see the planet. After 42 hours of hard labor, Ned arrived. His mama fixed me in a cold stare and said, “Don’t ever talk me into doing this again.” Twenty-one months later, there we were, in the same hospital, in the same room, in the same bed, delivering Tasman.
Friday mornings, Ned attends preschool while Tassie and I go to playgroup. Each time I arrive, the scene feels surreal. Mothers young enough to be my daughters sit around the room on the carpet, playing with their newly minted kids. But before long, I’m on the floor, too. While my classmates cure cancer, run law firms, enjoy tenure, and make China safe for free enterprise, I play with dolls, mix bottles, and watch Barney videos. Happily.
Oh, sure, I think wistfully now and again of the old life. Mostly, though, I savor the most challenging, rewarding job in the world.
Edward Kanze ’ 78 is an author, naturalist, and photographer. He lives with his wife and two young children along the Saranac River in New York’s Adirondack Park. His most recent book, Over the Mountain and Home Again: Journeys of an Adirondack Naturalist, is available in paperback.