I’ve been bird-watching with Filipe. Maybe “bird-listening” is more accurate. With the help of a bird-recognition app, we’ve learned to identify bird song. The two of us sit in the playground listening for chirping in the beech trees, the bark of magpies, the distant drum of a woodpecker. He sits beside me and sometimes, absent-mindedly, he’ll reach out and hold my hand or rest his head on my shoulder. He isn't the most fluent speaker, his words often come out in a jumble, but touch is one of the ways he communicates. Life at Drummond Hall can be hard, but it can be gentle too.

I’ve had various jobs, inside and outside the academy, but I’ve always referred to my work with children as the most “rewarding”. It's engaging, gratifying and meaningful in a way that's hard to define (I attempt some thoughts on this in Chapter 5). I’m not alone in feeling this way; many of us are drawn to childcare and to children, whether as would-be parents, professional carers or simply enthusiastic bystanders. For whatever reason, we think children are important, we think they’re meaning-making. With this in mind, it seems odd to argue the case to produce more of them. Oddness, however, is rarely a barrier to philosophical debate and we have, over time, collectively articulated a number of arguments in defence of procreation.

More often than not, we’re told that the decision to reproduce isn't a decision at all, but an instinct, a natural tendency, a drive, an expression of our beautiful animal natures. This is a pervasive and persuasive thought. We are human animals and making babies is just what happens.