Welcome back to “Ancient Wisdom,” our Sunday series in which writers over 70 tell us how they are aging gracefully. Last week, Elinor Lipman, 74, reflected on the surprising joys of widowhood. This week, the editor of the series, Joe Nocera, 73, writes about being missing in action as a young dad—and becoming a better dad the second time around.

It’s Father’s Day, and at 10:00 a.m. this morning I’ll be getting on a plane and heading to South Florida, where I’ll join my 14-year-old son. As I’ve mentioned before, Macklin is a serious junior tennis player, and South Florida is the place where serious junior tennis players go to get better.

He’s currently with his grandfather, who will leave after I arrive, so it will just be my son and I hanging out till the end of the month. We’ve been doing this, my son and I, since he was 10, so we have our routine. Most mornings, I’ll either meet him at IHOP after his drills are done or make him scrambled eggs and bacon at the apartment we’re renting. Then I’ll head back to the tennis academy with him to watch his lesson. When he gets back in the late afternoon, he’ll chill while I work, and then we’ll go out to dinner. I’ll take him and his buddies to Benihana one night. We’ll go visit one of my brothers who lives nearby. On Sundays, I’ll take Macklin to church. He has a deep Christian faith, which I don’t share but have come to respect. He will play in a tournament while we’re there, and when he’s playing, I’ll be focused on him—not my email or my work. Most nights we’ll watch a movie before bed.

I realize that this sounds awfully mundane—just your basic father-son bonding experience—and I guess it is. For me, though, at the age of 73, it will inevitably cause me to reflect on the father I’ve become, as opposed to the father I used to be when I was much younger and raising three children who are now grown and have children of their own. I’ll be blunt: I wasn’t the best dad the first time round. Maybe I needed to gain the wisdom that comes with old age to get it right; or maybe I needed to be more secure about my place in the world; or maybe I just needed to wake up to the mistakes I made, and tell myself I would do a better job if I were given a second chance. When Macklin came along 14 years ago, there he was staring me in the face: my second chance...