Talking To Teens: Expert Tips for Parenting Teenagers

Introduction to Talking to Teens
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Andy Earle: You are listening to Talking to Teens, where we speak with leading experts from a variety of disciplines about the art and science of parenting teenagers. I'm your host, Andy Earle.

We are talking today about disability and parenting. Our culture often has fixed ideas about what parenting should look like, but these perspectives can leave out the valuable experiences and insights of disabled parents. When we broaden our understanding of parenting to include diverse bodies and abilities, we not only create more inclusive communities, but also discover profound lessons about adaptation, resilience, and what truly matters in raising children.

Introducing Jessica Slice
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Andy Earle: Our guest today is Jessica Slice. She is a writer, disability advocate, and author of the new book, Unfit Parent, a Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World. In her book, Jessica explores her journey as a disabled parent and challenges society's assumptions about who can be a good parent while offering valuable insights for all parents about adaptation, emotional regulation, and finding joy in the midst of life's challenges.

Jessica, thank you so much for coming on the Talking to Teens podcast. Really excited to have you on the show today.

Jessica Slice: Thank you very much.

Andy Earle: I've been reading through your new book here.

Congratulations on that. It's called Unfit Parent: a Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World.

Jessica's Journey to Writing
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Andy Earle: Talk to me about this, you're telling your story through parenthood and really talking about what it is to be a parent and be disabled in our culture. What inspired you to write this into a book and how did this come to be?

Jessica Slice: So, I wrote the book because I was in conversations with a publisher. and they were wanting me to write a book, which I think is an unusual way for something to be born. And we were talking through what do people need, what am I interested in?

And the thing I had been writing about in essay form was Disabled Parenting. we landed there naturally. But I didn't want it to just be a complaint about how things are unfair for disabled parents. Which, they are. But I thought that was a simplistic view and not all that helpful and so it really took time to think, okay, what do I wanna say with this book?

I wanna talk about the reality of disabled parenting and the ways we can improve accessibility and improve representation. But also, what do disabled parents have to teach and offer all parents? that's a conversation with inclusion a lot of times is not only we should be included because it's the right thing to do, but because everyone's better off if we're there.

Andy Earle: Adds to the discussion. Yeah. it's easy to think of it the other way.

Jessica Slice: I think there's this assumption that we should invite people not like us in because it's the right thing to do, but it's actually because we are all better when we have a diverse viewpoint and life experience.

Confronting Parenting Stereotypes
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Andy Earle: You talk in the book about watching a talk at some point and maybe a friend takes you to see a talk this lady's talking about parenting and sort of experiences about parenting, and you're just realizing that like none of her experiences of parenting are what parenting is for you.

why was that an impactful moment to you, and what did that ultimately get you thinking about?

Jessica Slice: it's where I really had to confront that feeling I had.

Media representation and social media representation and just general public parenting looks a certain way. It's a harried mom, in the carpool line. It's someone walking around a room with a child on their hip. It's someone cooking dinner while helping their kids with homework.

there's this view of a very physical, very specific mom During this talk, she kept giving examples. And not one of the examples fit how my body operates in the world and what my parenting looks like. At the time I didn't think, she should have more inclusive examples, I thought, I hope no one finds out my secret, which is that I'm not really a mom.

which is obviously not true. I am a mom. I have two kids, but it made me feel like I was pretending to be a mom. That I was engaged in this elaborate performance of motherhood and that it didn't really apply to me.

Andy Earle: And then that started to shift for you or something?

The Reality of Disabled Parenting
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Jessica Slice: I think I wrote an essay about feeling like an imposter and the Washington Post printed it, and then shortly after that, Alice Wong saw it and included it in her book, Disability Visibility. And between the Washington Post essay and then Alice Wong's amplifying it even more, I started to hear from other disabled parents who had so many of the same feelings. I heard from hundreds of people.

anytime we're part of a community it makes our own feelings, even the harder ones, more bearable. these people I was hearing from, I didn't think, well, they're not real parents. Or they're not real moms.

I thought they were obviously real parents. And, so, it was easier for me to see myself clearly because of all the communication from other disabled parents.

Andy Earle: you have a powerful line in the book here, on page 40, talking about how our attempts to control outcomes is motivated by the assumption that we know what makes a life good and worthy. So many times we're trying to control things with our children because we know what they should be doing differently.

it puts us into that control mode.

Jessica Slice: I think we have a view of parenthood and life that's often an imitation of things we've observed. in my lived experience, I don't think we're actually very good about knowing what kind of life we would enjoy, and what kind of life would give us meaning, and how it actually feels to live different versions of the same life.

Andy Earle: So, how do we start to see different possibilities or expand our awareness, or imagination.

Jessica Slice: I was this wild overachieving perfectionist in my twenties who lived thinking that if I just did more things better then I would finally be happy. And I was taking all these wild trips and having all this professional success and spending all this time with friends. And it always felt like satisfaction was just around the corner. And that I needed to figure out one more thing, or optimize one more thing, or plan one more ridiculous party and then life would be good.

And when I became disabled at 28, all of the things I had been hoping for vanished, and suddenly I was jobless and single and living in a one bedroom apartment watching shows with my little sister. it took me a while to adjust to being disabled, but what I found is that it forced me into a bit of honesty about life. About what I could control and what I couldn't, and about how success impacts us emotionally. all of that resulted in a deep sense of satisfaction. And I ended up liking my life far more as a disabled person who's mostly in bed or a power wheelchair than someone who was living this really shiny life.

And so, it was forced on me, but goodness, there must be other options, right?

Early Parenthood Experiences
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Andy Earle: Something I found fascinating in the book involves the transition of the first weeks of parenting. you did some research, speaking to different parents about how those first weeks were or what the transition was like. I found this really interesting. You write that non-disabled parents described the first week as some of the most challenging days of their lives.

Harrowing, destabilizing, terrifying. but disabled parents had different responses. Their first weeks were... fine.

Jessica Slice: Yeah.

Andy Earle: What's going on there?

Jessica Slice: Yeah, that was wild to me. I started that chapter expecting to find different themes about challenges between the two groups, and was hoping that provided some direction for the chapter.

I knew I wanted to write about Early Parenthood, because it is such a critical time for everyone. But I really thought my interviews would reveal a direction. I did a few interviews and this pattern showed up, and so then I did more interviews and more interviews. by now I've interviewed two dozen people in each category. after the book was done, I interviewed gynecologists and obstetricians who work with disabled parents at UCLA. I've interviewed a researcher from Harvard about the topic. In general, I actually have found only one exception.

Disabled parents adjust to becoming parents much more easily than non-disabled parents, despite the fact that disabled parents are much more likely to have medical complications after labor and delivery.

Andy Earle: They have more to deal with, but yet, seem to be smoother. how is that possible?

What's going on there?

Jessica Slice: I have a few theories. One, and I think it's the easiest to demonstrate, is that disabled people have been practicing really specific skills that apply directly to early Parenthood. Our daily life is an enormous amount of problem solving all around eating, sleeping, moving, just a lot of body problem solving. I need food, but I'm too sick to make it. How will I get it? What can I afford? there's this constant body-based problem solving. And I think parenting a newborn is a lot of body-based problem solving.

And so in some ways we've just been practicing really specific skills. But I actually think that's the smallest of the reasons.

Really what I think it is, is that having a baby and taking care of a baby forces someone to confront disability as an identity and as a concept. giving birth and recovering from giving birth or watching your partner recover from giving birth is like, oh my gosh, my body is weak.

I'm in pain. I need help going to the bathroom. I need help eating. I need help rolling over. I can't sit up off the floor. suddenly, you're living in a limited body. And we are taught to fear disability to such an extent that when you become a version of disabled or temporarily disabled I think it elicits this terror of like, this is a type of body that cannot live in our society. I cannot go on like this.

And then babies are extremely fragile. And needy. And I think when you're non-disabled, you can ignore how fragile and needy bodies are in general and ignore your own body's fragility and neediness.

disability forces a day-to-day awareness of that. And when you become a parent as a non-disabled person, your body feels disabled and then you have this extremely precarious creature. And it's just way too much care, way too much need.

It's erratic. Even the baby's breathing is chaos. the way they eat is chaotic. The spitting up and the sleep and all of it. And I think it's just kind of disability. And we are trained to fear disability. I really think increased comfort with disability and reducing the amount we fear disabled life would have a direct positive impact on the experience of caring for a newborn.

Andy Earle: I totally see that. If you spent your whole life dealing with having limitations of your body, it's like not that big of a deal maybe.

Jessica Slice: Yeah. A lot of non-disabled people said to me, I felt like I couldn't live this way forever. There's this sort of irrational sense of, how can I go on this way? if you haven't been forced to be terrified of disability, you don't have that same background fear.

you probably won't go on this way forever, but even if you did, you'd be fine. We can handle. Limited bodies. we adjust.

and actually, this research out of UCLA, it wasn't the point of the study, but it was part of the study. an obstetrician tracked the rates of postpartum depression among non-disabled patients.

And those with spina bifida, I believe. It was physically disabled pregnant people. And she found that the disabled pregnant people were much less likely to have postpartum depression. there is limited research on this, but some that backs it up.

Andy Earle: A lot of the book centers around your journey becoming foster parents and ultimately, parents. it's a powerful story. can you talk through that a little bit, or why you thought that was important to include?

Jessica Slice: Yeah, I mean, I know when I read nonfiction books, I really need a narrative to keep me going.

I need to be following one person's story, and the story I have to tell is my own. So, I don't think I'm the most emblematic, or even remotely the most interesting, disabled person to become a parent, but it is my story. And so, I really just included it because I wanted something for a reader to follow.

I wanted them to be with me from the beginning. And then the epilogue of the book is the birth of our son via surrogacy, and he's now one. I wanted readers to come along with me for all of that.

Andy Earle: It's really a powerful story, but also, it's eye-opening too in a lot of ways about, some of the disparities in the system.

And a lot of interesting things that you, as a reader become aware of, in terms of the child welfare system, and hoops that you have to jump through that are, really difficult for disabled people.

Jessica Slice: I had to prove I was healthy enough to be a parent. Towards the end of the book, I spend a lot of time talking about the rate at which disabled parents lose custody of their children to the child welfare system. that chapter moved around a lot when I was writing because it's such a crucial thing to talk about, and it's something that is always on the minds of disabled parents.

we always know that we're at risk of losing custody because the rates are so high. I ended up not putting it towards the beginning because I really wanted people reading the book to see how profoundly equipped we are to care for kids so that when it comes to the part where we're getting separated from them, I wanted to increase the fury by the time readers got there.

Andy Earle: Yeah, it makes me wonder a lot about how we think about parenthood in general.

Insights on Ableism
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Andy Earle: You have a whole chapter in this book on ableism towards the end. I was really interested in that and what you felt was important to communicate.

Jessica Slice: I really wanted to get into what ableism is at its core.

I think we assume that it's discrimination. the easiest thing to say is ableism is when there's no ramp into a business or a place. I wanted to spend time thinking about, what is it really? the thing that I spent a lot of time on is an argument that disdain for someone or a group of people, lives very close to pity. And that if we think someone's life is inherently worse or not worth living, then that is ableism.

And so, I spend a lot of that chapter challenging the assumption that it is worse to be disabled than not disabled. I talk about the disability paradox, which is this philosophical phenomenon where disabled people have a far greater life satisfaction than non-disabled people assume, and higher than a lot of different groups of people.

I look at how this assumption that disabled people do not have good lives infiltrates so many things. I talk about the forced sterilization of disabled people and pressure to have selective abortions for disabled fetuses. And then this pervasive assumption that we should spare people from living a disabled life.

When, in fact, disabled people say over and over again like, Hey, I like my life. And there's a few parts of that. One, if we essentialize people to only one quality, like disability, we are ignoring all the other realities of their life.

But then also I think it goes a step further. It doesn't just come down to satisfaction. Because disabled people are not always as productive as non-disabled people, we aren't as valued in a hyper capitalist, consumeristic society.

Sometimes satisfaction is used as an excuse to cover up the fact that we just don't get as much done.

That we require more care and don't make as much money.

And so what they say is your life isn't good.

We immigrated to Canada a few years ago, and as part of that process. I, because I'm disabled, had to go through so that the government could estimate how much I would cost to live here. my husband, because he went to grad school in Canada, gave us additional points in our application.

Well, he went to grad school here, so he's good, but she's disabled so she's not. of course that's super essentializing. I would say I am an asset to Canada. I think they're better off with me here.

But it was just a matter of am I too expensive?

Andy Earle: Yeah. Cost benefit. What have you done for us lately?

Jessica Slice: Yeah. That really shows something that happens everywhere. When we get down to it, so much comes down to profitability or productivity of financial sense.

And I think we try to sugarcoat that with words like quality of life.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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Andy Earle: Jessica, thank you so much for coming on the show today and speaking with us about your research, your writing, and your experiences. It's been fascinating and really insightful.

Jessica Slice: Thank you so much for having me.

Andy Earle: Can you talk about where people could go to follow updates from you or learn more about what you're up to?

Jessica Slice: you can find me at jessicaslice.com and Instagram. Jessica Slice. I have a newsletter. I talk monthly about disabled parenting and usually about a poem I've been reading that month. And those are really the best places.

Andy Earle: We are here today with Jessica Slice talking about disability and parenting, and we're not done yet. Here's a look at what's coming up in the second half of the show.

Disabled people receive inadequate gynecological care, contraceptive counseling, patients cite inaccessible equipment, reduced appointment time.

Jessica Slice: And when I became disabled, I developed the ability to just be content no matter what I'm doing.

I think that really benefits my kids. I provide a permission structure for being a limited person, which everyone is a limited person. If I imagine the way I was in my twenties as a parent, such a performer and a perfectionist, the message I would've been sending to my kids is, show no weakness. Never let them see you sweat. I'm not saying life is ever easy or uncomplicated, but pretending that we are invincible will never be the solution to life's complications.

Andy Earle: Wanna hear the full interview? Sign up for a subscription today. It's completely affordable, and your membership supports the work we do here at Talking to Teens. You can now sign up directly through Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.