It’s a father’s obligation

Putting off the day when your kids have to take care of you

ON a June afternoon 28 years ago, in the last inning of my Little League team’s annual parents-and-kids game, my father hit a game-winning grand slam. Judging from the uncertain way he ran the bases and his inexplicable headfirst slide into home plate — a belly-flop, really — no one was more surprised at this turn of events than the batter. Covered in dirt, blood streaming from his skinned elbows, he lumbered to his feet, beaming. At age 52, Edwin Bercovici, Milwaukee ophthalmologist, had finally attained athletic glory.

You’d think his 13-year-old son would have been bursting with pride, but I was closer to mortified. The last thing I wanted was all my sporty friends leaving with a mental snapshot of my dad doing something athletic. Better he should have struck out. I was close with my father, even idolized him in ways. But I was beginning to be painfully aware that, in one important respect, he wasn’t like my friends’ dads. He was old.

Not just in years, although there was that. Most of my classmates were the offspring of baby boomers, while my dad was born before World War II. More than his calendar age, he was old in the ways that mattered to an adolescent. My friends’ parents listened to the Rolling Stones or Van Morrison. My dad was into Mozart and Mel Tormé. His go-to pop-culture references were radio shows from the 1940s and ’50s: “The Shadow,” “Bob and Ray.”

Then there was his lack of athleticism. Although always trim, he shunned exercise. He would circle a supermarket parking lot for 20 minutes rather than take a spot at the back. Never once did I see him jog, swim a lap or do a pushup. In his movements, he resembled a toddler in a too-tight snowsuit, all stiff joints and trunk. Although they weren’t great jocks, my friends’ dads could do what we thought of back then as dad stuff — toss a spiral, sink a free throw, paddle a canoe. My dad preferred pursuits where gravity (skiing) or a motorized cart (golf ) did the work. It wasn’t laziness. He just came of age in an era when playing games that involved sweating was something you left behind in childhood.

My father was 39 years and 11 days old when I was born. When my daughter was born, I was 39 years, five months. In most ways, I think my child is lucky to have this version of me rather than an earlier model. I’m more financially prepared for parenthood than I was at 30. Being established in my career gives me flexibility to be there for her more. I don’t miss the nightlife scene that felt important to me when I was younger.

But, man, do I miss my 30-year-old body. It would come in handy now. Wrestling an unwilling 28-pound person into a car seat, going days at a time without a good night’s sleep, catching every cold that goes around — these are insults that young flesh forgives more easily. Watching a video of my daughter, I catch myself in the background and think, Ugh, you’re moving like him already? I worry that my daughter will someday wish I’d work the burger line at the team picnic rather than make her cringe by joining in the game.

This anxiety isn’t just mine. In the time I’ve been alive, the average age for becoming a father in America has climbed 3½ years, to 30.9, and higher for the college-educated. But that doesn’t mean we’re older versions of our dads. Just as the boomers who came after my dad discovered jogging and yoga and aerobics, my generation of parents has found its own approach to fitness. We’re the ones who entered adulthood — and who now approach middle age — not just clinging to shreds of our athletic identity but fully expecting that our best physical years are still ahead of us. It’s us driving the growth of high-intensity exercise chains such as CrossFit and Orangetheory. We’re the ones buying $135 ClassPass memberships and $2,000 Peloton bikes to squeeze workouts into our calendars. (Peloton’s founder, John Foley, got the idea after finding that he couldn’t make it to the spin studio with two kids at home.) Thanks to us, the proportion of Americans who participate in fitness activities has climbed 6.6 percent over the past decade, even as those over 65 have become increasingly sedentary.

Why should we expect anything less? Every time we turn on the TV, there’s some sports superstar in our demographic achieving new career bests. From Tom Brady to Serena Williams to LeBron James to Shalane Flanagan, the arrival of life’s fourth decade is looking ever more like the beginning of an athlete’s prime rather than the end of it. As sports science and medicine get better at pushing back the onset of decline, we’re seeing for the first time what it looks like when an athlete’s physical peak overlaps with mental, technical and emotional mastery: all-time greatness.

I’m nobody’s idea of a great athlete, but I’m fitter than I was a decade ago, thanks to the hours I spend every week cycling up hills and swinging kettlebells. That stiff movement that reminds me of my dad? It’s less genetics than the legacy of a bad soccer injury. I’m a fitness junkie, and that makes me perfectly average; in Berkeley, Calif., where I live, it’s rare to meet a parent who’s not addicted to yoga or ultimate Frisbee or half-marathons.

Fine, perhaps there’s a dash of Peter Pan syndrome. No one likes to think he’s losing it. But since my daughter came along, working out feels as much like a responsibility as an indulgence.

My dad turned 80 this spring. These days, I worry less about how old he seems to my friends than how old he seems to me — and himself. It’s been years since he golfed. He gave away his skis. I try to convince him that a couple hours of activity a week would add years to his life and take decades off his body. The research is clear on this. Exercise is the ultimate anti-aging drug. It’s not too late. But habits of a lifetime are hard to undo.

There are a lot of things parents of my generation can’t give our kids. A planet with normal weather patterns. An economy in which most people will be better off in the future. A Social Security system that will be solvent, like, next week. But even for those of us who started late, putting off the day when our kids have to worry about taking care of us is one thing within our power to give. We all tell ourselves we won’t be like our parents, but when it comes to prioritizing fitness, we mean it. I’ll take a Father’s Day bike ride over breakfast in bed, thanks. And if the sight of me in neon Spandex humiliates my daughter someday — well, she’ll get over it. I did.

Tim Brinton