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A disabled mother challenges an inaccessible world

Unfit Parent

Unfit Parent, examines the obstacles that disabled parents face, the societal beliefs that undergird those barriers, and the political and economic systems that hold it all in place. Unfit Parent explores how disability culture and the strengths inherent in having a body like mine would, if included in parenting culture, make contemporary parenting more sustainable.  

Unfit Parent is available in print, large print, audio, and e-book!

Book cover image of Unfit Parent by Jessica Slice; a textured book cover with oranges and greens and the subtitle: "A disabled mother challenges an inaccessible world."

“Unfit Parent is love letter to disabled parenting – an impeccably researched, reported, and referenced love letter – as well as an artfully drawn map of an exquisite, convivial society that can only be achieved with the creativity, skill, and joy of disabled people. Jessica Slice bends our beliefs about bodies and reorients us toward our need for one another, the messy beauty of our interconnectedness.”

Angela Garbes,
author of Essential Labor and Like a Mother

Hear Jessica talk about Unfit Parent

The Motherly Podcast

CBC: Sickboy

Image of Sickboy podcast cover and text: "Unfit to parent? The stigma of disabled parenting."

The Mother of it All Podcast

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Available in print, large print, e-book, or audio!

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"This book will change how you think about parenting forever, no matter how able-bodied you may be.

 

As a disabled parent, Jessica Slice didn't want my pity or admiration. She wanted me to learn about the many obstacles people with disabilities face when they consider parenting, and how those obstacles make parenting harder for pretty much everyone.

 

This book made me more determined than ever to help dismantle the unrealistic expectations that make raising kids difficult. I give this my highest recommendation." ~Blair

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"This is an important book. It will change how you think about disability, able-bodiedness, and parenting. It is at once insightful, broad, succinct, intellectual, personal, and heartbreaking." ~Alisha

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"As a disabled parent, I annotated about half this book! It's both validating and infuriating in its look at how ableism harms disabled parents and the disability community as a whole. I highly recommend this book to disabled and non-disabled readers alike." ~Mary

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"I adored this book.

 

The writing is beautiful, the content is essential, and the author moves from personal narrative to researched reporting to thoughtful analysis without skipping a step.

 

I had an advance reader's copy but went ahead and placed my preorder so I'd have a copy I can lend too." ~Alison

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"'One way to to describe ableism is that it's the lie that we can labor ourselves out of suffering.'

I read this after listening to an excellent interview with the author on the Burnt Toast podcast. The author succinctly connects how capitalism fuels ableism in general and attitudes toward parenting and family specifically. She also provides examples of how individual creativity and mutual aid can help to fill in the gaps in our healthcare system/childcare "system"/etc. -- while still emphasizing the need for MASSIVE structural change... I consider myself firmly anti-ablism, and there were a few stories that *really* surprised me. Definite recommend." 
~Jenna

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