In the final instalment of this entertaining trilogy on what it means to be grown up our curmudgeonly guide looks at parenthood. Jon Richardson can’t really bear the thought of children at the outset. He is particularly concerned about getting other people’s shit on him. But will his road trip change him?

Well, talking of shit, do bears poop in the woods? Ever since we heard that he is engaged to Lucy Beaumont in the first episode there’s been noticeably more of a twinkle in his eyes. The hard-nosed neurotic actually seems to be softening up. He may even be experiencing some things called normal emotions.

It doesn’t start off that well though. He is pretty cynical about Colette, who is so hooked on impending motherhood she wants him to feel her bump and be present at the birth. And when JR and his chum Matt Forde, who once ate some of his own pooh thinking it was a chocolate raisin, are given a robotic virtual baby to look after for the night he really does seem to have a downer on being a dad when it won’t stop crying. Surely he can take the batteries out? Though I'm not sure if you can do that with a real one.

Another couple, Anna and Richard, have decided not to have children (well, it looks to me as if she has decided and he has gone along with it for a quiet life). Maybe they have a point, wonders Richardson. After all that’s £200,000 you would save over two decades and you could buy a Ferrari with that – cue snazzy test drive. On the other hand, he goes camping with 7-year-old Felix and starts to bond over football talk…

We won’t spoil the ending, but needless to say Richardson has his eyes opened a bit. Maybe he would make a good dad, despite his misgivings. After all, he has spent a month in a camper van with easily-excited “farting behemoth” Matt Forde while making these documentaries. If he can handle that then he can surely handle a bawling baby. 

Watch Jon Richardson Grows Up – Children on 4oD here.