Image via Facebook/Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens

You’re going to die laughing at these comments over a rhino breastfeeding her calf

You guys, sometimes the internet is Good. Even the comments section can provide us with creative, hilarious, gems of internet gold when you’ve got the right photo and the perfect target audience. Case in point: the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens shared a photo of one of their rhinos nursing her calf, and the internet had a field day.

Enjoy.

Meet Seyia, a rhino living at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens. That’s her calf, Kendi, breastfeeding down yonder. IN PUBLIC. Can you believe it? The nerve. The image was shared by The Milk Meg Facebook page, and it just took off from there.

“Kendi will still nurse every now and then when Seyia will allow it,” the caption reads. Kendi appears to be a tad on the older side, and moms (of the human variety) everywhere chimed in with some of the best comments you’ll ever read.

Before we dive headfirst into those, however, here are some quick facts about mama rhinos and the way they care for their young. First, the rhinoceros gestation period is 18 months long. Which, whew. Secondly, according to RhinosInfo.com (God bless the internet), calves typically nurse for a week or two only. The mothers usually teach them how to subsist on local vegetation. But don’t tell that to Kendi or Seyia, who are defying the rules of nature and doing their own thing.

And the internet is wondering exactly what, pray tell, Seyia’s true motive is? Mom-shaming shouldn’t be exclusive to humans, you know.



LOL FOREVER AND EVER. I actually died after reading this comment, and now my ghost is typing out the rest of the story.



Brb, wheez-laughing at that Photoshop job and dabbing moisture from my eyes from said wheezing.





Those damn rhinos — just making things harder on themselves, damn it. Parenting is hard enough.







Are you howling yet? I’m howling so loudly my dog is staring at me.







BRELFIE. Omg, I can’t. I’m done.

While all of this is very tongue-in-cheek, hopefully it makes it even more obvious how asinine it is to shame breastfeeding mothers who nurse out in the open. As Seyia and Kendi have demonstrated here, it’s natural. It’s why our bodies produce milk. And if you wouldn’t be offended by this sight at the zoo, you shouldn’t find offense in human mothers who do it wherever they see fit (speaking of which, the zoo is one of about a zillion places I nursed my own child).

Keep on keepin’ on, Rhino Mamas and Human Mamas of the world. You do you.