Older fathers have 'geekier sons'

The findings seem a little off to me. My father was 26 when I was born and he was a leather cutter, so our family wasn't advantaged in any way. He was also a hopeless parent and played very little part in my personal development, despite being physically present throughout my childhood.

The really key environmental factors that led me to being a geek can firmly be put down to: My Mother taking me to the library every week; having plenty of books at home and school; and good quality teaching at school. I can't imagine that having an older/wealthier father would have that much additional impact on top of these factors.

They are a little off because you compare them to your own individual life and you ignore the general trends.

I'm a geek and libraries had nothing to do with. Rather it was all about my geek big brother and some of my geek friends. Yet I don't deny that the geekiness can be inherited from an old geek father in most cases.

My father is a butcher, who was 20 when I was born.

Came to geekiness mostly because I moved into different cities too much. Didn't find good friends, so I started gaming.

In the end the gaming led me to build my own PCs, fix them when they broke down and tweak the games and drivers. This led to interest in coding.

That could be true, but older fathers also have more defective genes, are less able to play with their children, etc. The children are just genetically "weaker", have more physical issues and participate in far less physical activity because their father is so old.

This is anecdotal evidence but one of my friends had a very old dad. He had issues which forced him to wear bifocals and hence he didn't participate in sports. And his father was 60 when he was conceived so his dad didn't play catch with him or get him to try out for little league or play basketball with him.

So instead, he stayed home mostly and used the computer and got into "geeky" stuff.

The father's other children he had when he was younger are all very active, athletic, etc and none of them have to wear bifocals, etc.

I got into sports because my dad played catch with me and encouraged me to play sports because my dad wasn't old when he had me.

On the one hand, older fathers will be more established, but on the other hand, they will have more defective genes and less active/physical.

Maybe its not so much the Dad; its having older siblings by the time you're Dad is old? My youngest grew up very mature, trying to keep up with his older brothers.

My first son is a soldier. The 2nd and 3rd are software developers and musicians. Works for me.