TPP 439: Jessica Slice on What We Can All Learn from Disabled Parenting

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Unknown 0:00
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Jessica Slice 0:26
There's so much prejudice against disabled people and unfair assumptions about our capacity to parent. And so we're unfairly judged within those contexts. And then also the very nature that we often need help with housing and with food is then considered a reason why we might not be good parents. So there's this whole convoluted system where it looks like needing help equals being a bad parent. But my argument is that every single parent needs help and anyone who's pretending otherwise is like absolutely crumbling under the pressure. Most of my friends are non-disabled parents and all of them are exhausted and all of them are desperate and all of them feel like they're falling short. So I think all parents need help.
Debbie Reber 1:16
I'm Debbie Rieber, and welcome to Tilt Parenting, a podcast featuring interviews and conversations aimed at inspiring, supporting, and informing parents raising differently wired kids. I have a really good one for you today. We're going to be talking about the reality of parenting while disabled. My guest is Jessica Slice. She's the author of the new book Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World, a writer, advocate, And disabled mother who challenges the way society defines fit parenting. Jessica's work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Disability Visibility. In this episode, Jessica opens up about the unique challenges disabled parents face, from the obstacles within the process of becoming parents to navigating a world that often feels inaccessible.
Debbie Reber 2:03
We also talk about how disabled parents are often Excluded from mainstream parenting conversations and why they face heightened scrutiny from child protective services. Jessica shares her powerful perspective on creative adaptation, a mindset that empowers disabled parents to create a parenting approach that works for them rather than trying to conform to systems that weren't built with their needs in mind. So whether you are a disabled parent, you're raising a disabled child, child, or you just want to learn how to be a more informed and supportive ally. This episode is filled with Jessica's honest insights and practical wisdom that challenge outdated ideas about what makes a good parent. I really love Jessica's book.
Debbie Reber 2:46
I encourage you to check it out and I hope you enjoy this conversation. Hey Jessica, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I was approached, I think, by your publicists and I It's like, ooh, this looks like a really interesting book. It's a little different from the traditional parenting advice fair that we do, but I was so intrigued by your story. And I know there's a lot of parents in my community who are disabled, whether that's disabled through their neurodivergence or some other way. And I think there's so much that we can explore together that would be really relevant to my audience. So I'm excited to get into it. So your book, which is coming out in April, is called Unfit Parent, A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World, as a way to kind of bring us into the conversation.
Debbie Reber 3:44
Would you tell us a little bit about your story just so we have some context for your disability and how it manifested and how you came to be in the space that you're in now?
Jessica Slice 3:55
Yeah, of course. So I am forty two and became disabled at twenty eight. Very suddenly I Was on a hike, got heat exhaustion, and that triggered a neurological condition that had been latent. called Dsautonomia Pots, which is now a much better known than at the time because it's a impact of long COVID as well. And as it turns out, my POTS was secondary to a genetic condition called Ayler Stanlow Syndrome.

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