NO matter how fantastic your children are, at some point during their time growing up they will wind you up. It’s just what kids do to their parents.

Whether that’s being a sulky toddler or teenager, it’s one of those hurdles parents have to negotiate, like a bedroom that looks as though a bomb has hit it or clothes piling up so high they become the laundry equivalent of Ben Nevis.

If you’re a parent your child has probably exclaimed ‘I hate you’ at some point, usually followed by an exaggerated stomp upstairs and slammed bedroom door.

Thankfully, in general, children grow up and grow out of the tantrums as they move into adulthood.

However, let me refer you to the case of Raphael Samuel, which has set a new benchmark for me in real-life stories that you couldn’t make up. He is reported to be getting set to sue his parents — because they chose to have him without his consent.

The 27-year-old from Mumbai, believes it is wrong to put an unwilling child through the 'rigmarole' of life for the pleasure of its parents, and has compared having children to 'kidnapping and slavery'.

Just take a moment to consider that notion. Raphael is apparently an ‘anti-natalist’. This is a new one on me, but this is by all accounts a growing movement in India as younger people resist social pressure to have children.

They have the belief that parents do not have the right to give birth if a child has not agreed to being born.

The story amused me for a couple of reasons.

Number one — and quite frankly, the most obvious — how can you ask for consent from someone who doesn’t yet exist (unless you are Doctor Who and can nip to the future in your Tardis, ask adult Raphael if he agreed to be born and then pop back to the parents while they’re getting all loved up and diplomatically suggest they use some contraception).

Number two — I imagined my parents’ reaction to me at the age of 27 threatening to sue them because I hadn’t given them permission to have me. They would still be laughing now.

Apparently, Mrs Samuel has said she would accept she was to blame if her son can come up with a rational explanation as to how she and her husband could have sought his consent prior to his birth.

She also more than generously points out that lost amid the gobsmacking lawsuit threat is that her son’s beliefs stem from a real concern about “the burden on the world's resources due to needless life, his sensitivity toward the pain experienced unwittingly by children while growing up”.

"I'm very happy that my son has grown up into a fearless, independent thinking young man. He is sure to find his path to happiness,” Mrs Samuel is reported to have said.

And after talking about possibly taking legal action against his parents, Raphael claims he has a "great relationship" with them.

That’s reassuring; just imagine what he would have done if he didn’t like his mum and dad …