POSTPONING MY MIDLIFE CRISIS: I turned 38 yesterday. Given that the average life expectancy in the United States is approximately 77 years, you could make the case that I've reached the halfway point of my life, give or take a few years and barring any untimely cancers, car crashes, or incidences of bioterror in my immediate vicinity. In other words, I've successfully reached the mythical "midlife" we hear so much about and, as a result, can expect to be visited by the attendant "crisis" sometime soon.

Somehow I don't think so.

I was talking to my mother yesterday afternoon. She had called to wish me happy birthday and, as we often do when one of notches another year, we got to talking about how old we both are and about the parallels in our lives. And the differences.

As we were talking, I realized that she had given birth to all three of her boys by the age of 31, whereas my wife had our first child at 36 and will be 39 when she delivers our second.

"I was the old lady," my mom told me, recounting a kindergarten parent conference for my youngest brother Casey, eight years my junior. She went on to describe how she sees grey-haired parents chasing toddlers around airports and thinks they look old enough to be grandparents...only to realize they're the same age as her eldest son...grey-haired me.

It seems that my generation -- or at least the urban folks my wife and I live around in Chicago -- are operating six or eight years behind my parents' generation, getting married a bit later and procreating a bit later. (I'm not sure if this applies to our rural contemporaries or not.) Although many journalists are rallying around the phrase "60 is the new 40," I'm starting to think that's wishful thinking. So on the morning after my 38th birthday, after waking up in my contacts after a glorious sushi dinner in the company of dear friends, I've come up with a rallYing cry that feels right for me:

"38 is the new 30."

Which gives me eight more years before I have to start planning my midlife crisis.