Ep 335: What Disabled Parents Can Teach Everyone

Jessica Slice, author of Unfit Parent, shares her profound insights and experiences on disability and parenting, breaking down stereotypes, addressing ableism, and showing what disabled parents can teach us all about resilience, adaptability, and embracing life's challenges.

Full Show Notes

In our conversations around parenting, we often have a narrow definition of what abilities and physical capacities are required to be a “good” parent. From movies and advertisements portraying mothers and fathers effortlessly multitasking and holding toddlers on their hip, to parenting talks describing the chaos of carpool lines and daily errands, the portrait of parenting we encounter every day seems to leave out those with disabilities or physical limitations. As a parent, what do you do when your experiences don’t match up with these cultural representations? How can each of us benefit from broadening our understanding of what it truly means to be an effective caregiver?

In today’s insightful episode, we're joined by writer and disability advocate Jessica Slice, author of Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World. Jessica became disabled at age 28 and has experienced firsthand how our cultural perceptions about motherhood often exclude people with disabilities. Through her writing and advocacy, she passionately argues that disabled parents have powerful insights to offer all parents, and she exposes the ableism and biases in parenting culture. Jessica’s eye-opening perspectives invite us to consider how embracing a broader definition of parenting can benefit everyone.

What Disabled Parents Can Teach All of Us

Early in our conversation, Jessica describes how attending a typical parenting talk left her feeling like an imposter because none of the descriptions matched her own parenting reality. In writing openly about her experience, Jessica discovered a community of disabled parents who shared similar feelings. But what began as a revealing essay soon transformed into a broader mission: to show how disabled parents actually contribute unique abilities and insights to parenting.

Jessica points out how disabled people grow adept at solving practical day-to-day problems surrounding movement, food, rest, and more. Such problem-solving skills translate directly into caring for a newborn, making disabled parents often surprisingly adept at navigating early parenthood. Moreover, disabled parents have already learned powerful lessons in letting go of expectations, embracing uncertainty, and adapting to changing circumstances—qualities that deeply serve all parents as they navigate the complexities of raising children.

Ableism and Our Culture of Fear Around Disability

Jessica thoughtfully unpacks ableism: the deep-seated, often unconscious biases and fears that lead society to view disability through a lens of pity or disdain. She explores how ableism shapes everything from medical care to reproductive rights—and even the way parenting itself is structured and evaluated.

One of the episode’s most fascinating discussions focuses on Jessica’s research around early transitions into parenthood for non-disabled families versus disabled families. Remarkably, Jessica discovered that disabled parents tend to adjust far more easily and report fewer incidences of postpartum depression—despite often facing greater physical health challenges. She explains how our cultural fear of disability makes this early period harder for non-disabled parents: society conditions us to dread having bodies that are weak, fragile, or dependent on others. Disabled parents, meanwhile, have already accepted and adapted to these realities, making the transition less shocking and chaotic.

Overcoming Barriers in Parenting Systems

Throughout our interview, Jessica candidly describes how social systems and institutions—from reproductive health practices to the foster care system—are often ill-equipped for disabled people. She discusses the enormous challenges and fears disabled parents face when navigating the foster adoption process, including inaccessible mandatory classes and intense scrutiny about physical fitness to parent. Despite these obstacles, Jessica demonstrates the incredible resourcefulness and creativity that disabled parents show in developing customized solutions for caring for their families.

Jessica’s story about becoming a parent through fostering and surrogacy illustrates poignantly both the systemic barriers disabled people face and their impressive capacity to advocate for themselves, adapt, and thrive. She insists that disabled parents' lives are not tragedies to be pitied; instead, they exemplify adaptability, patience, and the courage to embrace life’s unpredictability.

In the Episode…

Beyond these deeply insightful conversations, our discussion with Jessica covers much more, including:

• How Jessica's disability shifted her perspective from striving and achievement to genuine contentment
• The critical importance of accessible and inclusive sexual education for disabled teens
• The ongoing practice of invention and creativity disabled parents rely on to accomplish everyday caregiving tasks
• The connection between productivity, capitalism, and society’s attitudes toward disability and human worth

Jessica challenges and expands our cultural notion of what it truly means to be a capable, loving, and effective parent. Her journey offers invaluable lessons, not only for the disabled community, but for parents everywhere. Join us for an illuminating conversation you won’t want to miss—and don’t forget to subscribe to Talking to Teens!