The older father...

I've been a full-time father and primary caregiver for the past thirteen years.  I was almost 48 when I had my son, and by that time in my life I didn't want to miss a minute of it.  Work no longer had any meaning for me, and though I didn't really have enough money, I decided to cut back on my work schedule anyway.  Having a child was, for me, the most profound experience of my profligate Hollywood life, and the first and only event that gave it any meaning.  Little else in my life before him had any resonance at all...

So... here I am.  I've spent a large portion of what I thought were my "savings" to bring him up the best way I possibly could, and tried to give him all the things that I thought (fingers crossed) would help him reach his maximum potential.  I'd often made choices in life for other-than-financial reasons, and I optimistically thought everything would somehow just work out. But I didn't count on 9/11, the Great Recession, or the death and retirement of almost every production client that I had...

I don't have any regrets.  Having a child is, without a doubt, the most important, insightful, joyous, loving and charming thing that I've ever done or ever will do.  But I'm deeply afraid of becoming a burden to my son in my old age...

I'm pretty worried, and frankly, who wouldn't be?  I was ridiculously naive-the cost of living and raising a child has been so far beyond my estimates that it's laughable.  Sometimes I wake up  in the middle of the night, wondering what will happen to my family and I in my rapidly approaching old age.  I'm almost a senior citizen with a thirteen year-old son, and I haven't made a significant amount of money in over 5 years... 

In the end, it doesn't matter. The only thing that really matters is the welfare of the young man who, seemingly, went to sleep the night before as the little boy who called for his daddy but woke up in the morning taller than his 5'7"mother.  Given how fast it's going, I think that the time I've spent with my son is far more valuable than any amount of money I might have made.  My particular job would have taken me away for weeks and months at a time, and deprived of me of the only thing I ever really cared about.  That's why I did it the way I did it, and quite honestly, I'd do it all over again...

Check out my website: http://www.jamielegon.com to see an excerpt from my book FEET FIRST-Riding the Elder Care Rollercoaster with My Father, follow my blogs, or to contact me directly...