Kind of like the unwanted interest in birds that hatched and came home to roost at some point here in my 50s, I’ve been hit with another fledgling interest, one I don’t really talk about much, mostly because it freaks me out, and really betrays my age.

I want a grandchild.

It is, I admit, an awkward fit for a guy whose self-diagnosis is Peter Pan Syndrome. But here we are.

I have three daughters in young adulthood, none of whom, as far as I know, is in the market for parenthood anytime soon. This bizarre jones for a grandchild that was apparently buried deep within my DNA really has nothing to do with that.

To be clear, I associate this I-kinda-want-a-grandkid thing with getting older.

When you skateboard in your 50s, the subject of aging comes up a lot. You’d think that the fact that I still skate at 56 would telegraph my denial about aging loudly enough, but alas, getting along in years is a subject everyone, including other skaters, loves to bring up. Sometimes skaters bring up age as a self-deprecating excuse as to why they are not skating at the level they’d like to, but if they’re younger than the person they’re talking to, they just do it to make the older feel sort of bad about himself.

I sometimes wonder if people in other countries are nicer to their friends, or are friends brutishly mean to each other everywhere? To varying degrees of success, I always tell myself to take ageist remarks as the grief-giver’s semi-expressed fear of death or decrepitude. Whether or not that’s the case doesn’t matter. It just helps me tune out the negativity.

The trifecta of getting older for males seems to be birds, grandkids and a deep interest in a certain war or civilization. Fortunately, I’m still waiting for a niche corner of history to present itself as something to obsess over. I’m open to suggestions.

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Whatever state of denial I’m in, even I can’t help but take my hankering for a grandkid as a sign of getting older. I’m more or less fine with that. Given the one-way nature of time, what choice do I have? It’s the cheesy emotions I could do without — just passing young families on downtown sidewalks has made me emotional lately. Fortunately, sunglasses can mask my symptoms of sappiness.

That’s not always possible. When my oldest, Caroline, recently came to Bend with her longtime friend, Vanessa, who is now a mother to a baby boy, they stopped by our house. My wife, Catherine, got out the old sling she and I used to carry our daughters in and toted Caius around for a while.

I haven’t held many babies since my own kids 19-plus years ago. At first, I teared up, but then I couldn’t stop and was basically just crying. “OK, you’d better stop crying. You’re freaking him out,” Catherine said.

Time was, you couldn’t have paid me to hold another baby. But holding Caius for a few minutes, it all came back to me, what it’s like having the sturdy, precious bundle that is a baby nestled in my arm. There’s kind of no more solid, important thing you can hold. I’d forgotten what that’s like. About the most valuable thing I ever carry these days are overpriced groceries.

I have no say in whether children are in my daughters’ respective futures, nor would I want one. Certain boundaries between parents and children should be respected — unless you were a writer for “Modern Family,” a sitcom in which everyone in the family is all up in everyone else’s private and procreation business in a way that makes this formerly repressed lapsed Catholic blush.

So I mind my own beeswax. But if and when one (or more) of my daughters decides to unleash her DNA into the world, I’ll be there, ready to freak out their kid with my tears.