Just a thought that's always been hanging around at the back of my mind.

When we first meet Robert Picard, he's old. But his son is young.

So I looked it up today and Robert is canonically 68, René is 7. There's no age given for Marie, but the actress was 51 at the time.

So *technically* it all fits OK. He's older than his wife and she had a child at 44. Which is late but not rare.

I'm really wondering why. It feels like a specific choice they made.

OK, so Robert was the older brother - that's important. And René is still young enough to be a dreamer. That's also important.

But would a 63 year old man with a 12 year old son not "fit" better while still keeping the narrative themes intact?

Or perhaps they were making a point about how medicine had become, so much that having children at advanced ages was unremarkable? We know Beverly had Jack Crusher when she was in her late 50s.