New book ‘Unfit Parent’ provides valuable parenting lessons from the disabled community

John Yang:

Last year, the surgeon general warned that parents in the United States are overwhelmed and burned out. One group of parents is often overlooked. The 1 in 15 with disabilities. Jessica Slice became disabled years before becoming a mother. The experience, she says, prepared her for parenthood. Ali Rogin spoke with her about her new book, "Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World." It's part of our series Disabilities Reframed.

Ali Rogin:

Jessica Slice, thank you so much for being here. You write in the very introduction of your book, disabled parents have something powerful and transformative to offer. Tell me about that.

Jessica Slice, Author, "Unfit Parent": Yeah, I think that disabled parents have been rejected by the systems that govern parenting for everyone. And from that place of rejection, we formed our own way of parenting. And I think actually that way that we formed can be an off ramp for all parents from consumeristic parenting, from perfection driven parenting, from this sense that we should be able to willpower our kids into safety and ultimate happiness.

Ali Rogin:

You spent much of your adult life, your young adult life as a non-disabled person. And you write about that transition and what it was like for you in the book. But what wisdom and tools do you think you bring to parenting as a disabled parent, as somebody who became a parent while disabled that you wouldn't have been equipped to hold if you were not disabled?

Jessica Slice:

Yeah, so when I was in my 20s, I had this sense that happiness or perfection was just around the corner, that if I could just do things a little bit better, then I would really enjoy my life and disability pride that perfectionism from my hands. And since becoming disabled, I'm much better at just taking my days as they are. And I know that many days will be hard for many people and I'm able to accept that.

And then I also think that being disabled taught me how to be bored. I'm very good at just sitting around all day. And I think under acknowledged requirement for being a parent to young kids is the ability tolerate boredom.

Ali Rogin:

That is, as the parent of a toddler myself, that is very true. On a serious note, there are studies, there are books that you talk about, countless testimonies, many of which you write about in the book. Disabled people facing staggering discrimination when trying to become pregnant, when having a baby. And then certainly it continues once they have a baby.

Can you take us through the ways that the system is designed that often fails disabled parents in this way?

Jessica Slice:

Sure. I mean, you know, this could be its own book and I hope it is one day. But reproductive care is often inaccessible. There's many obstetricians who are unable to help physically disabled people. Many fertility clinics aren't able or unwilling to help disabled people get pregnant in the hospital. Child protective services is often called after giving birth. I mean, it kind of goes on and on.

Ali Rogin:

And what assumptions underlie that dynamic in the system? You talk a lot about this in your book.

Jessica Slice:

Yeah, I think really at the bottom of that is this sense that if you need care, if you have a needy body, if you can't be completely independent, then unable to care for others or unable to care for a baby. And I just think that's fundamentally untrue.

And I think it really hurts all parents because I think it gives non-disabled people this false perception that they should be able to parent without help.

And so non-disabled people crumble under this unsustainable pressure, and then disabled people are kept out of the whole thing. I think we all want so desperately for our kids to be okay and for our families to be okay, and we parent with this idea that we are invincible if we only work hard enough.

And admitting that disabled people exist and that we make good parents is also admitting that none of this is promised and all bodies are fragile and all bodies have needs.

Ali Rogin:

You write about a discrepancy in the book that disabled people routinely report being happy at rates equal to or greater than non-disabled people. And yet most doctors who have been surveyed on this believe that disabled people have a quality of life that is less than a non-disabled person. Why is it so common for society to consider disability in this way?

Jessica Slice:

It's actually called the disabled paradox. It's a philosophical phenomenon that disabled people are just far happier than anyone think. I actually joke in the book that statistically, you're much more likely to be happy if you're disabled than if you're a doctor, which, you know is unfortunately true. And they have their own rates of moral injury.

But I think what's underneath it goes back to this fear of fragility and fear of mortality that for many people, disability is a reminder that nothing is promised and very little is actually in our control. And we think, oh, we don't want to get anywhere close to fragility, because that is terrifying. But I think once we kind of look it in the face and live with it, then we actually can live very fulfilling lives.

Ali Rogin:

You write in the book about how the challenges that disabled people experience on a daily basis that really equip them with tools to be constantly creative and calm and able to adapt to change, really equips them well, especially in the earliest days of parenting when things just feel completely out of one's control. Tell me more about that.

Jessica Slice:

So I think there's two parts of this. One, we're afraid of disability. And in many ways, having a baby and caring for a baby is confronting disability. You know, if you labor and are recovering, you're nearly in a weak and unpredictable body, and a baby is very weak and unpredictable.

And then on top of that, in my experience, being disabled and dealing with the daily and hourly problem solving of living in my very painful and unpredictable body primed me and prepared me to not be totally overwhelmed caring for both my babies when they were newborn and incredibly unpredictable and incredibly needy.

Ali Rogin:

Jessica Slice, author of "Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World." Thank you so much for joining us.

Jessica Slice:

Thank you for having me. This was wonderful.