What Disabled Parents Can Teach Everyone About Parenting (with Jessica Slice)

2025-05-27

Before becoming disabled, Jessica Slice was building a business, running miles every day, and chasing perfection. Parenthood didn’t fit into that life, especially because Jessica was sure she’d never measure up. But when her physical health collapsed at 28, everything shifted. Disability stripped away the life she knew, and uncovered something unexpected—she wouldn't have to be perfect to be a mom. But unfortunately, she would have to fight to become one in a world designed to exclude her. Her new book is called Unfit Parent: A Disabl...

Before becoming disabled, Jessica Slice was building a business, running miles every day, and chasing perfection. Parenthood didn’t fit into that life, especially because Jessica was sure she’d never measure up. But when her physical health collapsed at 28, everything shifted. Disability stripped away the life she knew, and uncovered something unexpected—she wouldn't have to be perfect to be a mom. But unfortunately, she would have to fight to become one in a world designed to exclude her.

Her new book is called Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World, and she joins us to talk about why we must work to make the future of parenting more accessible, and why everyone will benefit when we do.

Complete transcript available at relationscapes.org.

ABOUT THE GUEST

Jessica Slice is a disabled author, speaker, and essayist who earned her master's of social work degree at Columbia University. Her new book, Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World (Beacon, 2025) has been shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Prize. Her other books include Dateable: Swiping Right, Hooking Up, and Settling Down and This is How We Play, with more books on the way. She has been published in Modern Love, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Alice Wong’s bestselling Disability Visibility, Glamour, and Cosmopolitan.