Heard on the news a couple of days ago that recent research has shown that fathers over the age of 40 are way more likely than younger fathers to have autistic children. Apparently, the mother's age doesn't have any effect where this condition is concerned. Not that I have much faith in the results of most of these surveys (some of them can be pretty ludicrous!), but this one made me chuckle a bit. The first person I thought of was Mr. Tom Cruise. After all his criticism of his fellow human beings, their follies and misdeeds, how would he like to be told that he might very well have caused the birth of an autistic child? Of course, in his defense, it could be argued that if his child takes after daddy, she's bound to be autistic, regardless of daddy's age....that was probably inevitable. Cruise's "enlightened" comments on Brooke Shields especially come to mind in this context. It would be interesting to see how the old fart who's recently been acting like a lovesick, giggly teenager with wifey who is 1/2 his age reacts to news such as this!