Unfit Parent

A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World

By: Jessica Slice

Narrated by: Finlay Stevenson

"Beautiful and razor-sharp…cannot recommend highly enough."
—Ann Helen Petersen, Culture Study

"Cuts boldly and beautifully through that silence, inviting readers to imagine what our world might look like if we met every family where they are."
—Vogue

“A beautiful, transformative book about being a parent in a world that rejects frailty and weakness.”—Rachel Aviv, staff writer at the New Yorker

A paradigm shifting look at the landscape of disabled parenting—the joys, stigma, and discrimination—and how disability culture holds the key to transforming the way we all raise our kids

In Unfit Parent, Slice debunks the exclusionary myths that deem disabled people “unfit” to care for their children, instead showing how disabled parents and disability culture provide valuable lessons for rejecting societal rules that encourage perfectionism and lead to isolation.

Combining her personal experiences with interviews, research-backed evidence, and disability studies, Slice shares insight into what the landscape is like for disabled parents—one that is scattered with unpredictable obstacles and inaccessible barriers, including:

• How do you find adaptive baby equipment?
• How do two disabled parents creatively keep their children safe?
• How do you get reproductive care when the medical system assumes you aren’t able to have kids?
• What is it like to be in public knowing that someone might call child protective services simply because a parent is disabled?

In overcoming these challenges, she describes how disabled parents are oftentimes more prepared to adapt to the demanding nature of parenthood, including the uncertainty of losing control over bodily autonomy.

Uplifting and powerful, Unfit Parent illuminates how disabled bodies and minds give us the hopeful perspectives and solutions we need for transforming a societal system that has left parents exhausted, stuck, and alone.

Disability should be renamed as extra ability

I loved the narrator and how the author describes disability and the way society has determined what is a disability. She does a great job, describing her experiences and how it relates to other disabled people. Completely eye-opening about the laws surrounding disability. Or the lack there of. I love how she relates her parenting journey to pretty much anyone else who has considered not becoming a parent because of their disability. I needed to hear this because I have thought I was unfit parent. She helped me embrace who I am and that I am just as able to have children as any person.

Incredibly Helpful, for both the disabled and nondisabled readers

I’m a wheelchair user, and a new parent. The number of times this book brought to light something I needed to hear is amazing, and I recommend it to anyone interested in understanding the disabled experience… Though it feels plain /necessary/ that disabled parents read it!