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Parenting messes up life expectancy formula

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By MIKE WINTER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 6, 2009

The year is 2103 and the world is a very different place. The Buccaneers are celebrating their eighth consecutive Hyper Bowl win. Hover cars run on a clean-burning mixture of pond scum and pizza crusts.

And my daughter is busy trying to decide whether to celebrate her 100th birthday by booking a scuba-diving excursion to sunken Sunken Gardens or just hang out at the beach in Greenland with the rest of her friends.

Preposterous, you say. OK, I'll grant you the Bucs winning eight of anything in a row seems farfetched at the moment, but the odds of my 5-year-old (or yours) living to 100 isn't, not according to a recent study from the University of Southern Denmark, which predicts kids born in the United States after 2000 have a 50 percent chance of reaching the century mark.

I'm happy for them. Really I am. And not a bit envious. My own life expectancy is slightly less than that, although how much less is open for debate.

Based solely on my prolonged exposure to Hostess products and a genetic predisposition toward cheesy fries, I can expect to live another 38 hours before my blood congeals into a mixture of lard and sugar which, if I'm not mistaken, is chemically identical to the stuffing in an Oreo cookie. So at least I'll leave a sweet corpse.

If, on the other hand, I factor in the time spent at the gym watching the Cartoon Network while leaning against the bench press machine, the fact that I usually get a solid five hours of sleep before a cat or a kid pounces on my stomach demanding breakfast, and my unflagging commitment to better living through unrealized good intentions, I can realistically add another 17 minutes to those 38 hours.

Those minutes I plan to use either sitting in the one private room in the house reading Entertainment Weekly or trying to remember where I left my car keys. I haven't decided which.

Am I being too pessimistic? Maybe. After all, I haven't taken into account the fact that I'm married (allegedly a plus for men's life expectancy), I don't smoke, and that weird lump on the back of my neck has finally gone away.

It's not so clear whether other factors are positive or negative. Children, for instance. Does having kids increase or decrease a parent's longevity? There's no denying chasing a screaming 3-year-old through the supermarket is good exercise. And you can't beat giving a 15-year-old his first driving lesson to boost your heart rate into the cardio-workout range.

Then again, finding a stash of girly magazines hidden under your son's mattress might just shave years off your life expectancy. At least that's what my mother assured me.

And what father isn't going to place one foot firmly in the grave the first time he spots a hickey his daughter has inexpertly attempted to conceal with makeup and high collars?

So the jury is still out. As unlikely as it seems, perhaps I will live to a ripe old age. Not to 100, obviously, but long enough to see the Bucs win two in a row.

Then again, scum-powered hover cars may come a lot sooner.

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