Mothers Day often becomes a day of reflection for many: how did my parents' impact me? How will I impact my child, if I have one or decide to have one?
There's a lot of ideas today about who parents "should be" — from Trad wives on Instagram to endless shelves of books about parenting styles and approaches. But Toronto-based author Jessica Slice wants you to rethink the "should be" with her new book.
Slice's recently-released book "Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World" focuses on countering the myths and stereotypes people have about disabled parents. Her book shows how disability wisdom and culture have the power to better prepare anyone for parenthood — currently disabled or not.
This week's Disabilities Beat features part of an interview between Slice and BTPM's Disability Reporter Emyle Watkins. We'll link to the full interview as soon as it's available on our website.
Slice's book is available from Beacon Press here and at Buffalo and Toronto area local bookshops including Talking Leaves Books in hard cover, paperback and large print.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hi, I’m Emyle Watkins and this is the Disabilities Beat
Mothers Day this past Sunday had me thinking about a recent conversation I had with disabled author Jessica Slice in Toronto.
Her recently-released book "Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World" focuses on countering the myths and stereotypes people have about disabled parents. Her book shows how disability wisdom and culture have the power to better prepare anyone for parenthood.
Jessica Slice: You know I'm careful with how I talk about my kids, I don't tell their full stories, their own complicated stories, because it doesn't belong to me. But one of my kids has had experiences in school and experience with education that has made an alternative path necessary. And the earlier version of me was such a perfectionist and had such a narrow view of what made a good life, I think my children would have felt a lot of pressure to fit that view and to live a very specific, prescribed life, but when that life rejected me, I rejected it back. And so when my kids have needed to deviate from the norm, I feel totally fine with that. The norm feels irrelevant to me, and I think they find freedom and acceptance there.
Emyle Watkins: I was really interested to talk to Slice, because beyond having the same disability, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, I grew up with a disabled parent and saw how my dad’s lived experience influenced his parenting style. We’ll have the entire conversation on our website soon, but today I want to leave you with part of our conversation that stood out to me - when I asked Slice about parents-to-be who have specific goals for their lives and children.
Jessica Slice: Gosh, I mean, I think it's so normal to want things and to have goals. In my experience, as someone who in my 20s lived an extremely shiny life. I was in a long term relationship with my high school sweetheart. We went, like a bizarrely made a lot of money in our 20s, with which we had no business doing. We took these elaborate international vacations, we had all these great friends that we had this really stunning life, and I was so deeply dissatisfied and a lot of it was because I thought that I could work hard enough to make my life good enough. And I thought happiness was just — kind of like just over the hill, as long as I figured, once I figured this out, I would finally be happy. And at that point, if I had told myself what my life would look like now that I would be almost entirely in bed, that I would have this tiny, tiny, tiny life with very unimpressive many things, I would been horrified. And I think what's true, and I really think this, is that we are very bad at controlling our lives. We cannot do it, but I also think we are equally bad at designing our lives and predicting what will make us happy or not even happy, because I don't think that's the goal. What will make our lives worthwhile, what will make our lives feel like honest and true, and I think we are bad at that. So whatever your goals are, it's good to go after them, but you're probably wrong, and we don't control very much anyway.
Emyle Watkins: Are you happy now?
Jessica Slice: Yeah, I am, and I'm also not seeking it, and I'm not always happy. There's a lot... of okay, like right now you're here, and this is fun, and my body hurts. I'm sure your body hurts. One of my kids is having a very hard day, and I'm worried about it. I ate a lunch that made me nauseated that I'm regretting. There are just bad things and there are good things. And I think I do feel a level of happiness, because I don't think an altogether 'good day' is owed to me. I don't think it's what this life is about. And so I guess I do, I do still feel happiness, and I also have hard things happening.
Emyle Watkins: You've been listening to the Disabilities Beat from Buffalo Toronto Public Media. You can listen to the Disabilities Beat segment on demand, view a transcript and plain language description for every episode on our website at BTPM.org. I'm Emily Watkins. Thanks for listening.
