Let's not beat about the bush: being a father is the best, most important, most profound thing you'll ever do during your time on the planet. Yes - you might be a big achiever at work, you might be a formidable commando in the army, or you may even consider yourself pretty special when it comes to sudoku. Laudable and impressive achievements one and all. But when it comes to making a difference, to leaving your mark during your relatively brief sojourn on our green and pleasant planet, there can be only one show in town. That's your responsibilty to - and influence on - the little people you help to bring into being. As benefits something of such magnitude and gravitas, fatherhood comes with a complete working set of highs and lows, triumphs and tragedies, and moments of illumination and despair. You see, being a dad is many things, but anticlimactic isn't one of them. You can feel intense irritation and impatience before breakfast, frustration and despondency by lunch and an acute sense that you need to earn 37 times more than you do now just after tea.

Threading through all this high emotion will be a sense of fatigue which would be impressive in its tenacity, if it didn't make you feel so utterly wretched. After the passionate intensity of the conception, the taut anticipation of the pregnancy and the all-round gobsmackingness of the birth, you'd think that with the hard work over you and you partner could settl down to bringing up junior in a idyllic domestic setting. But even before we join the dad club we are well aware that's garbage. We've heard the rowing parents in Sainsbury's; we've seen the new dads at work, dragging themselves in like the living dead with a tie on. We've even endured meals while our friends, our once placid and composed friends, have conducted frantic debate over a nappy full of green poo. All that and much more will happen to you too - guaranteed. But it's the things you weren't expecting about parenthood that really take your breath away. Your moments of joy, pride and unbridled love for your little boy or girl go completely unnoticed by the outside world, because they take place in the very deepest part of your chest.