How Disability Made Me a Better Parent — Jessica Slice

Airdate: September 3, 2025

Julie Rose: What does it mean to be a good parent?

Jessica Slice: There's a lot of activities of parenthood that you assume you have to stand for, but you just really don't, just don't, just don't stand up, just find another way to do it.

Julie Rose: Hey, it's Julie. Welcome to Uncomfy, a show about sticking with moments that challenge us even when they're uncomfortable. And I know you're probably wondering, "Why would anybody choose to be uncomfortable?" But I know from personal experience, and you probably do too, that sometimes a little discomfort has benefits if we can stay open and curious about it. And that's what we're here to explore, so let's get Uncomfy. Today, I'm joined by Jessica Slice. She's a disabled author. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and her latest book is a memoir. It's called "Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges An Inaccessible World." Jessica has two kids. Welcome. Thanks so much for being with me today.

Jessica Slice: Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

Julie Rose: Tell me about the title, "Unfit Parent." Is that a label that you've had placed on you?

Jessica Slice: Not to my face, um, though disabled people are declared unfit far more than non-disabled people and often not because of particular actions but because of the fact that we are disabled, and so I wanted to draw attention to that with the title, um, but I also wanted to do something else, which was I think that most parents suspect that they may be unfit. I think we all carry around this, this worry that like, "What if I'm not good enough? What if I'm not doing this well enough?" And so, I also wanted the title to be, like, uniting, to kind of speak to that insecurity that parents have.

Julie Rose: We need to know a little bit about your disability story, if we could. It, you were 28 when you became disabled. What is the nature of your disability?

Jessica Slice: Yes, so I'm 42 now. It's been 14 years. Um, I, uh, have a genetic condition that impacts my connective tissue, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, but I didn't know I had that con, condition, and it can sometimes lead to a secondary neurological condition that impacts my body's ability to regulate heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, temperature. Um, And, for me, I was on a hike, I got overheated, and that episode of heat exhaustion triggered the secondary neurological condition. And then when my sister experienced something very similar, we were referred to a geneticist who is the one who diagnosed Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.

Julie Rose: So, what does that mean for your life? What, what, what is difficult for you because of your disability, because of these conditions?

Jessica Slice: I am always in pain, so every moment that I'm awake, I'm in pain. I experience a lot of nausea, dizziness, fatigue, uh, there's almost not a part of my body that is impacted. My window of, of tolerance for almost any activity is much lower than it was before I was disabled. You know, I can stand for about 30 seconds before I start to lose consciousness. I can sit upright for about five minutes before I start to lose consciousness. So, you know, I'm doing this for, like, supported on a slightly reclined chair. And before I became disabled, before I got heat exhaustion, I was a runner, so I ran seven miles every morning, I owned a business, I was an extremely busy and active person, so I, I think I was kind of on one end of the extreme pre-disability, and now, I, I don't, you know, know about the extreme of disability, but I certainly, as far as like activity level, I'm pretty low now.

Julie Rose: Um, when you were 28, at the time, you, you didn't have children, so you were not yet a mother. Had you always planned to be a mother or hoped to be a mother?

Jessica Slice: No, I assumed I would not be a mom, and I used to tell people that it was because I didn't want kids to cramp my style, that I had this really fun and vibrant life and I didn't want it impacted, um, but the truth was that I was such a perfectionist in my twenties and so hard on myself that I worried about treating a kid the way I treated myself, and so I, I just, I had this, like, kind of secret fear of, of what I would do to a child if I was a parent, and then it was actually becoming disabled and the way it forced me to reckon with how I judged my own life, how I valued myself, all the, the ways that I try, that I sought perfectionism or perfection, it was really that that made me reconsider if I wanted kids or not. So, it was becoming disabled that made me want to be a parent.

Julie Rose: Tell me a little more about that. So, so, becoming disabled forced you to, like, helped you to overcome your perfectionism? I mean, you, you just obviously couldn't, you couldn't run a perfect mile anymore, I guess.

Jessica Slice: Yeah. Yeah, and it also, mostly, it just made me sit around with myself. You know, I was able to keep moving and keep striving and, and, and, like, try to outrun all my worst fears for so long, um, almost literally, and then, you know, it took me two years to get diagnosed and then another couple, you know, there were all these years of waiting and, and a lot of physical discomfort, and during that time I just kinda was stuck with myself, and I had to get to know who I was, and through that, I feel very lucky that what I discovered is that perfection isn't possible, and that what I was left with, you know, what I was left sitting with is good as I am, without all of the things I had been trying to, you know, going after before.

Julie Rose: There's this really evocative line in, in your memoir, where, in 2014 when you realized, you say, "I realized that I would likely be sick for the rest of my life. I had to come to terms with how much of my body and future will remain a mystery. It would take years to accept my new reality and to live within my physical boundaries, but once I did, I was surprised to find out that I was experiencing the joy and freedom that I had yearned for during my years of rabid achievement." It's, it's so counterintuitive, but really eye-opening, this, that passage was for me to think that, with physical limitation, you know, that it was in disability, that you found the joy and freedom that you were seeking so actively in your able-bodied years.

Jessica Slice: Yeah, and I, you know, and I, two things with that. One, I don't wanna imply that that's the only allowable response to disability. You know, some people don't experience that. Some people experience their life as much worse and much more painful through disability. I didn't. And, um, I think something that really bothers me is there is an assumption that disability is tragedy, that a disabled life is a life that has, you know, is deficient, is somehow worse than a non-disabled life, and the, I think the thing I care so much about is that we should have the freedom and the space to determine how we judge our own lives and how we value our own lives, so that there should be room for a story like mine, which is that I am happier disabled than I was when I wasn't disabled, and I, and there's actually this, um, philosophical, uh, phenomenon called the disability paradox, which is that disabled people are much more likely to be happy than non-disabled expect, and we're happy at equal to or greater levels than non-disabled people, so it's actually, like, born out in research that disability does not equal a bad life, despite many assumptions to the contrary.

Julie Rose: Another one of the really surprising conclusions you make and arguments you make in this book is that it was because of your disability that you were better equipped to handle the stress of new parenthood and to kind of be able to revel in some of those joys. So, let's talk about getting to that moment. Um, once you decided that you maybe were open to having kids, that, that maybe you could be a, a fit mother, um, what were, I mean, you, were you concerned about, "Well, how am I gonna, how am I gonna care for a baby if I can't stand up and walk around? Like, how am I gonna," you know, the practicality of it, right?

Jessica Slice: So, I'm currently working on my next book, and as I'm writing, I've been realizing that, you know, the, I got sick in 2011, we became foster parents in 2017, or 20, into 2016, and during that time I had done so much problem solving because you know, when I got sick, Instacart really wasn't a thing, and Amazon orders weren't really a thing, and so I had to figure out how to get food every day. If I went to the grocery store, I couldn't walk down the aisles, I, if I, or I could for a few seconds and then I'd have to sit on the ground, and when I checked out at the grocery store, if there was anyone in line, I would have to scoot on the floor on my butt through the line. I, um, you know, every day was this, like, "How do I get it, get through today?" And I, a little bit at a time found a way to survive in this body that had totally changed, and what I'm realizing as I think through all that is by the time we were thinking about having kids, I had developed so much confidence in my problem solving ability. It's not like I thought through every possible complication with a kid and knew how I would handle it, but I had worked hard enough at that point to know that I will handle it. I have handled it, and I'm incredibly resourceful and brave.

Julie Rose: Yeah, it's a really beautiful story. Um, getting to that point though, even getting approved, as you mentioned, your first daughter, you've adopted her through the foster care system, is how, um, you call her K in the book. She's how old now, nine or 10?

Jessica Slice: Uh, she's eight.

Julie Rose: Okay, so, um, but that getting approved for foster care, being deemed fit to parent, even in that temporary way, created a lot of really Uncomfy scenarios. So, would you tell us just a little bit about what that process entailed and how, and what you had to confront?

Jessica Slice: Of course. So, we had to do, you know, now they do foster training online, but at the time you had to do it in person, and it was 24 hours of in-person classes, but the spaces weren't accessible for me, um, I kept getting really sick in the classes, and the rooms weren't climate controlled, and so even getting the initial training was difficult. And at one point I talked to the instructors, and they said, "Well, if you can't come to the class, how do you think you're going to be a parent?" And I thought, "I don't, I don't know that there's a correlation between sitting upright for six hours and being a parent, I just, I'm not positive that's necessary," but I managed to do that, I cobbled together a couple, and then the last step of the process was getting my doctor to sign off. So, any foster parent has to get a doctor's note, but, you know, for my husband who is not physically disabled, that, you know, his doctor hardly knew who he was, but he was like, "Yeah, sure, whatever, you know, of course you can be a parent." Um, but for me, my doctor, I had been seeing him for years at that point, and he had seen me at my very worst. You know, I had been in his office crying. He had my medical records. He knew all of the, the, the scariest parts of my condition, and so it was incredibly daunting to ask him to sign a form saying I was fit to parent. Um, and when I went in to ask him, I was so scared and he just asked me, "Oh, well what are you planning on doing for, um, meal prep, or," he asked me a couple, like, detail questions, I answered, and they weren't, they didn't feel invasive, and then he said, "Okay, I think a child would be very lucky to have you," and it was such a huge moment for me 'cause it was the first time, like, an outside person had expressed confidence in my parenting, in, in what I already believed to be true, and it, it just was a really special moment.

Julie Rose: Thanks for sharing that.

Jessica Slice: Yeah.

Julie Rose: Um, so K comes to you, as foster parenting often happens, kind of last minute, like, "Hey, there's a baby, and we need you, and here you go," right? You didn't have months to plan for all the supplies and the everything that you were gonna need for a newborn, um, so tell us about that first week with her.

Jessica Slice: I mean, it's so funny that this is how we became parents because we woke up, you know, 12 hours later, and my husband went to work the next day. Like, we, this was not this, like, massive moment, you know, I, and I, um, she was eight days old, I brought her home, and then I posted on the neighborhood, uh, Nextdoor group and said, "I unexpectedly have a newborn, which is a surprising thing to post, and does anyone have any supplies?" And then of course, you know, we were living in Oakland, California, people just started dropping off all of these, um, clothes and bottles, and it was incredible. And, uh, one of the people who replied was a night doula, um, or a doula who also did some night doula work, and she said, "Hey, this seems really special. I would be honored to come meet you all and help ease this transition." And then, so Renee swooped in, and she helped me set up a bottle station, just kind of helped walk me through what these early days could look like, and she offered to work a few nights for free to help us get used to being up at night. And so, there were people kind of coming alongside us, but, but, but regardless, or maybe because of that, it was one of the most peaceful times of my life, like it was, I still look back on that with such gratitude. I just felt like as soon as I met K, yeah, I mean, I, I always wanna cry when I think about it, I just knew her, and I loved her, and I just knew that I could do it, and I, I, it was, yeah, some of the most peaceful moments of my life.

Julie Rose: What are some of the adaptations, either that first week or as time has gone by, that you've had to make that, because of your disability, in order to be the kind of parent, you know, to take care of her needs?

Jessica Slice: You know, I do everything sitting down or on the floor, you, you know, but there's so many things you don't need to stand up for. Now, we have a house where I can use my wheelchair at home, but at the time we didn't, and so I spread out all, like, bottle making supplies on the floor. You know, I kept things clean. I, um, her high chair was just this little floor chair and that I would set up pillows for me to lay on while feeding her. I changed her diaper, I've always changed diapers for both my kids in bed on a, um, portable changing pad. You know, I don't do, there's a lot of activities of parenthood that you assume you have to stand for, but you just really don't, just don't, just don't stand up, just find another way to do it. And

Julie Rose: so, you eat laying down, you do art together, you, like, it's just all kind of, like, reclining on the floor or on a bed or something.

Jessica Slice: Yeah, and for a kid, like, kids really like lying around with their parents. Like, they don't think that is a worse situation. My 18 month old now, his favorite spot in the house is on my wheelchair. You know, he rides around, like, sitting on my lap as his throne from which he can, like, rule the, rule the household, he adores it. And, if I am, think about who I was before disability and the way I thought that I could do things better and better and better and better, and, like, approach goodness and, and how hard I tried at that, if I apply that to parenting, I just think the, the, the first days, the first months, the first week would've been really hard and really painful because nothing, nothing is perfect then, it's all kind of just, it's really slow. It's also weird and scary and boring and, you know, all sorts of things, and so I cannot imagine me at that time, uh, enjoying the first week of parenting, but I was so used to slow days, I was so used to sitting around, I was so used to a day that kind of entirely revolves around bodily functions. Like, I, it didn't feel like such a massive transition. I, I don't know, I think I've just been training for that by taking care of my own disability.

Julie Rose: So, what's the, what's the, the reframing, the redirection that you'd like to see for us as a society when we think about disabled parents and maybe just disability more broadly?

Jessica Slice: I mean, I think that representation is, is so often referenced, but it, it's really critical because in, you know, like, in medical settings, only 2% of doctors are disabled, in, uh, social work settings, about 2% of social workers are disabled. You know, 25% of people are disabled, and the laws continue to reflect a skewed reality when disabled people aren't present in spaces, and in order for us to be there, accessibility needs to improve. And so, um, I don't know, I would, like, challenge anyone to think, "Okay, today, all the places I go, which are the ones I could access in a wheelchair?" You know, for me, this morning, my husband took the kids out, um, on sort of a boring errand, but I had a, like, this precious hour to myself at a time when I normally don't, and I went to go get coffee at a new place. And so, I went and I got there and, you know, I, like, took my wheelchair there, I was walking distance, about 15 minutes away, and there were two steps to go in, but then there was a sign that said there was a pull up window or, like, a order window around the side, so I went around the side, but then they had put the window right behind a place where they park bikes. Other people could get around the bikes, but you had to go up steps to get around the bikes, so then I was trapped outside the bikes, and then I could see people looking at me, and that's sort of embarrassing, and then this man came out, and he said, "Here, let take care of this," and he asked me what I wanted, and he went to the order window and ordered for me, and there's a lot of back and forth 'cause I didn't know what kind of s scone I wanted, but, um, and that's minor. That's minor, but it's like that everywhere. Like, that, that's the, the sort of, like, fabric that makes up existing in public. And if I'm trying to enter a space, like, a professional space or, you know, that there are a lot, a lot of times that that really matters that we can't get in, and I think the ripple effects of that are just so massive.

Julie Rose: Jessica Slice is a disabled author, speaker, and essayist. Her new memoir is "Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges An Inaccessible World." You can check it out along with all her other writing at her website, jessicaslice.com. Jessica, thank you so much for sharing your story today with us.

Jessica Slice: Thank you so much for having me. This was great.

Julie Rose: And thank you for getting Uncomfy with us today. I'd love to hear about your experience with perfection or realizing that you can't be perfect and that maybe that's better than what you had envisioned. Send an email to uncomfy@byu.edu or find me on Instagram, we are @uncomfy.podcast, to continue the conversation. Uncomfy is a BYUradio podcast. Samuel Benson produces it, and the team includes Hyobin Kim and Sam Payne. Our theme music was composed by Kelsey Nay. I'm Julie Rose. Can't wait to get Uncomfy with you again next week.