Unfit ParentUnfit Parent

"Jessica Slice's disability is exactly what her child needed as a newborn. After becoming disabled a few years prior from a shift in her autonomic nervous system, Slice had done the hard work of disentangling her worth from productivity and learning how to prepare for an unpredictable and fragile world. Despite evidence to the contrary, non-disabled people often worry that disabled people cannot care for kids, labeling them as 'unfit' to parent. Yet disabled parents and culture provide invaluable lessons in rejecting societal rules that encourage perfectionism and lead to isolation. Blending her experience with interviews, social research, and disability theory, Slice describes the landscape for disabled parents. From expensive or nonexistent adaptive equipment to inaccessible healthcare and schools to the terror of parenting while disabled in public and the threat of child protective services, Slice uncovers how disabled parents, out of necessity, must reject the rules and unrealistic expectations that all parents face. She explores how disabled parents are often more prepared than nondisabled parents to navigate the uncertainty of losing control over bodily autonomy. In doing so, she highlights the joy, creativity, and radical acceptance that comes with being a disabled parent. While disabled parents have been omitted from mainstream parenting conversations, Slice argues that disabled bodies and minds gives us the hopeful perspectives and solutions we need for transforming a societal system that has left parents exhausted, stuck, and alone. Uplifting and insightful, Slice challenges readers to reconsider what disability means, what we can learn from it, and, ultimately, what we owe one another."--