What Older Dads Know

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My son Elliott is standing on the booth seating, getting little sneaker prints on the vinyl, so I try to distract him with a french fry. “Sit down!” says Lila, my niece, only 3 years old but still wanting to boss around 2-year-old Elliott. Leslie, my mother-in-law—Elliott and Lila’s grandmother—is trying to get Lila to focus on her own lunch, but it seems as if the entirety of her meal will be the strawberry milkshake next to her rapidly cooling hot dog.

Lunch finished, if not actually eaten, we gather the toddlers and their accoutrements—the toys, the wipes for milkshake mustaches or worse, the loose shoe. As we get the kids into their coats—it’s January 31, my birthday—a man in his 60s standing