Parenthood is a job, a job laden with responsibility, unpaid, often thankless. The endless burden is punctuated by occasional moments of epiphany as one realises, in awe, just how incredible it all is. Then it’s back. These transcendent moments are fleeting and it’s back to the tasks, the never-ending tasks.

Eventually humans will come to realise that to be so enslaved to their procreative impulses is not very clever. Then the status of parenthood might atrophy as science, psychology and social progress discover better ways of rearing children. Another step along the weary road to emancipation.