Five Lessons from Horror on Having Children by Shannon Knight
Lesson #1 Don’t have children if you don’t want to.

Leslie J. Anderson’s folk and body horror The Unmothers begins with an angry reporter, deep in her personal grief, sent to investigate a ridiculous story of a horse giving birth to a human. She finds a small horse town with a lot of familiar problems: poverty, drug addiction, teen pregnancy. Then there’s that creature in the woods.
The Unmothers teaches us that forest rituals, otherworldly entities, and women and girls within the community are all resources for handling undesired pregnancies. (Sex education is not a bad thought, either!) While some would love a child, others do not seek children. Options are available! Parenthood is not a task required of you!
Lesson #2 Your ideal family doesn’t need to match others’ expectations.

In A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock, two gay Victorian gentlemen live grumpily in their magnificent greenhouse. One man is a taxidermist, the other a botanist, and the glass walls of their home are testament enough that they’re comfortable disregarding society’s expectations. The creation of their botanical child doesn’t come without squabbles, nor do the many follow-up choices regarding how to raise her well. Alas! Nevertheless, the story is downright cozy if one disregards a bit of body horror, murder, etcetera. Consider you and your partner’s strengths and interests. Then create the family of your dreams! Remember that growth and change are natural!
Lesson #3 There’s no requirement to do it like your parents did.

John Wiswell’s Someone You Can Build a Nest In features Shesheshen, a monster, with fond memories of her childhood within the snug nest of her father’s body (until her siblings and she ate it all). Shesheshen has been dreaming of a family of her own, but when she falls in love with a human, she has to balance the troubling factor that building a nest inside of her love would have a negative impact on their relationship! (They have other relationship problems, such as her love’s entire family being on a mission to hunt and kill the monster, Shesheshen herself. Families can be difficult!) If, upon reflection, you see flaws in how your parents pursued having a child, you can always choose another path! (See Lesson #2.) Through accident, experimentation, and defiance, discover the best life route for your partner and offspring.
Lesson #4 Your child may not follow in your footsteps. (Or you can’t choose your parents.)

Rachel Harrison’s Black Sheep focuses on that embarrassing situation when the adult child visits home, and the family (and entire community!) interprets this as the return of the prodigal daughter, back into the folds of the community (which just happens to be a cult!).
Even if you proudly feel you have birthed the anti-Christ (or have some other expectations!), your child will decide who they want to be and how they want to live their life. Accept it! Aim to be proud and supportive!
Lesson #5 Parents must take great care with their child’s personal needs.

In Sunyi Dean’s The Book Eaters, not all of the secret clan survives by eating books. Regular book eaters absorb the sustenance of the types of books they eat. In a way, book eaters double their nutritional needs with their education, so careful parents curate their children’s menus and guide them towards the stories that will help them develop into the adults they wish for. (Cautionary Note: See Lesson #4.) However, Devon’s son requires a diet of human minds, and you are what you eat! What’s an anxious mom to do but take careful precautions for her boy? Your parental duty is to look out for the health and nutritional needs of your child. Select and provide for their diet with care!
On a more serious (and horrifying) note, others have their own priorities. When considering the best approach against dangers, from ongoing pandemics to school shootings, parents must prioritize their children’s well-being, even if all of society seems to be against you.
Shannon Knight

Shannon Knight wrote Domestication while living on an Icelandic sheep farm in the Pacific Northwest. There are no skulls on her roof, but there are a suspicious quantity of bones kicking around the farm. Knight graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor’s in English. She is the author of Domestication, Grave Cold, Insiders, and Wish Givers. Sign up for her newsletter at https://www.shannonknight.net/.
Find a copy of Domestication: https://books2read.com/Domestication
Domestication by Shannon Knight

When Janie chose the isolated sheep farm, she knew her husband would hunt her down. What she didn’t expect was Rob and Howard. Rob rules the farm with the same domination tactics she uses to train dogs, while Howard believes only human supremacists think humans should be treated any differently than other animals. Janie inadvertently jumps out of the frying pan and into the fire. She wishes to leave her old self behind. She wants to transform. Will she devolve into meat, metamorphose into a monster, or transcend beyond her domesticated limitations?
Grave Cold by Shannon Knight

Nyle doesn’t want to be there. But something is very wrong in the District of Portland, and the cold call of death forces his arrival. If he can’t lay the dead fast enough, his long life, begun in Anglo-Saxon England, will end.
Portland’s electronic walls do more than keep the mutants out. The government is using them to block Nyle and his kind, the ravens, who roam the world, freeing the dead from their bodies where they remain trapped till a raven’s arrival.
Cait, a Portlander working as a beautician, has her own troubles, dodging the GM (genetic modification) police and struggling with rent. But the dead are invading her dreams. Nyle tells Cait that she’s not genetically modified. She’s a necromancer.
In the District of Portland, the dead are being trapped indefinitely and used as energy sources. Nyle and Cait must stop the technology from spreading before the abuse of the dead becomes a worldwide menace and they themselves end up on a laboratory table or trapped in a machine.
Discover more from The Ginger Nuts of Horror Review Website
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
You must be logged in to post a comment.