I’ve got zombies on the brain, y’all. I don’t mean the I-Nursed-Mah-Behbeh-Seemingly-Every-Hour-Last-Night-and-I-Need-Coffee-STAT brand of zombie. (Although I extend an empathetic embrace to those mamas. Hang in there, fellow Mombies. You’re doing an awesome job!) Rather, I mean the I-Am-an-Ambulating-Putrid-Corpse-and-I-Want-to-Eat-Your-Behbeh brand of zombie. After getting hooked on The Walking Dead television series this past season, I recently and eagerly pored through the first five books of the graphic novel series upon which the show is based. I have never ever read a graphic novel before, nor have I ever been a fan of zombie flicks or lit, but somehow I got sucked into the creepy vortex of the shuffling, decomposing undead.
**(Fair warning: there are mild spoilers about both the show and graphic novels in the following. If you care about that kind of thing, it might be a good idea to stop reading. )**
In the graphic novel, one of the characters gives birth to a healthy baby. As I was tensely reading that particular chapter, it hit me like a shovel through the brain that there is a place for natural, gentle, attached parenting in the zombie apocalypse.
There are no functioning hospitals in the zombie apocalypse, which means…you can can finally have the home birth and birth bonding you always wanted without interference from your family, friends, doctor, or health insurance company! You will meet your tender wombling for the first time in the comfort of your own home! Or in whichever uninfested home you’ve been forced to squat!
No epidural? No problem! Since you can still feel and move your legs, you can kick that attacking zombie in his rotting chest! You’re all jacked up on birthing adrenaline and endorphins–who else wants a piece of your birth-empowered ass?
Mama’s milk is free and won’t require a risky mission to that neighborhood grocery store overrun with creepy cannibal corpses. And who couldn’t use repeated hits of oxytocin and prolactin–those lovey, warm, relaxing hormones induced by nursing–in the terrifying times of zombie apocalypse? Nature’s own anti-anxiety drugs!
By the time you start thinking about introducing solid foods, those grocery stores will have probably been looted down to their last tic-tac. Baby-led weaning it is!
And you know what else? Media empires will have fallen, so you can put those mammaries to “extended” use without fear that a major news magazine will distort your parenting ethic with a provocative cover photo! You’ll be too busy fighting the zombie world war to worry about reloading for the mommy wars anyway.
Sharing sleep in the zombie apocalypse? Don’t mind if I DO. You’ll sleep more soundly knowing that you can protect your wee one and respond to any of his needs quickly and quietly. Prolonged crying would be tantamount to ringing a dinner bell for the undead–an “extinction method,” for sure.
And babywearing? Yes, please. Grab a bed sheet, tie that sucker on, and tuck your half-pint in close to you, and voila: your baby is content and comforted in an uncertain time. And it also frees up both of your hands for zombie slaying, natch.
It just might be, friends, that the key to surviving World War Z is the Baby B’s. What do you think?
Rhianna hasn’t had a full night’s sleep in nearly a year and a half, which, by her estimation, makes her at least half-zombie. She credits her husband for getting her hooked on The Walking Dead and her 16-month-old son for making her feel like the walking dead. Enormous thanks to her friend, Amber, for the zombie-fied picture above.
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