Older fathers

Guardian Unlimited Money | News_ | Money worries delay fatherhood, says survey:
This is an important thing to note in terms of the big impact it could have on church life. Let's just tease out some possibilities on that. There's issues in the CofE related to Christening enquiries. My research shows that men are least likely to think that Christening in whatever form is something that they are wiling to publicly identify with and as their confidence grows with age I suspect that this could feed even more into the diminishing figures recently published. On the other hand, it is likely that they are going to be having children when mid-life is making them ask questions of meaning of life and which having children is likely to exacerbate. There may be opportunities though I think that pitching our response in terms of what kind of world we create for our children may be the most fruitful rather than an Alpha approach.

Also given new interest and entitlements to involvement in parenting it could be that the whole mother and toddler thing will look increasingly different.

Articulate, reasonably financially secure, wanting more involvement in their children's upbringing and perhaps less willing to let the mother's interest in spiritual things be the default position on matters pertaining to spirituality: that's the likely kind of way it looks. MAybe these guys are into midlife issues but do they really see anything in the churches or the lives of Christians around them that make them think that Christ has something helpful to speak into their lives? Remember these are people who may well also be used to various kinds of training stuff that has a vaguely spiritual link [usually new agey].

I may be running way ahead of the facts here, but I would be surprised if some of it didn't check out.

One thing though:
"'The concept of children knowing their grandparents could disappear within a couple of generations if those trends continue,' said Jason Wyer-Smith, of Virgin Money Life Insurance."
Seems to be an issue of not taking into account the bigger picture: when I do funerals for people who've died in old age they have often died in their late 70's or in their 80's or older. Their children are in their 50's and 60's; their grandchildren are teens or twenties or thirties, they often have great grandchildren. Life insurance people haven't been linking up their actuarials with this factoid!