Book Review: Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will To Survive by Stephanie Land
Book: Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, And A Mother's Will To SurviveGenre: Memoir
Author: Stephanie LandPages:270 Reviewed by : Me! (Tsara)
me reading the book my daughter-in-law lent me
She was using birth control but it didn’t work.
WhenStephanie Land discovers she is pregnant not long after her 28thbirthday, she finds herself in an all too familiar place. One where she has tomake choices that will drastically decide the direction of her life. Hers, andif she chooses, her child’s.
Some of thechoices she makes are thus: have the child, tell the father, become a mother.
Putting herplans to attend a writing program in Missoula, Montana – a place that calls toher like home - on hold, she tries to build a family in a trailer with herincreasingly abusive boyfriend. When his abusiveness becomes clear, when hepunches a hole in the plexiglass window on the door, meaning she can call the police with a type ofproof, something to point at and say, “See that? He did that to us,” she does.She leaves him and begins her time as a single mother.
I admit tobeing impressed that she knows it is right to walk away. I have not always beenso aware. Others, however, might have been unimpressed with how long it takesto leave. Others, still, would judge her for leaving at all at so “little”abuse. The point is relevant to this book where a recurring element is howeasily we judge each other and ourselves.
Stephaniedoes not have much support from her family. Her mother is inaccessible, livingin Europe and not interested in making changes, and her father – living withhis second wife and their children - is unwilling to be inconvenienced for toolong by his oldest daughter and his granddaughter.
So,Stephanie works. She works at finding work - landscaping and as a maid - sheworks at getting assistance for day care, food, housing, utility payments. Sheworks at bartering her way to a better life for her daughter, offering to cleantoilets and houses in order to get sparkly dresses, healthier housing, andsafer day care. She works at stifling the shame she feels for being a singlemom, for being poor, for not being better at doing better. She works at tryingto keep her daughter safe from black mold and an abusive father.
Thestruggles of getting assistance from the system, while working your butt off forvery little pay as a landscaper or maid - tidying up for others - is portrayedso well in this memoir. So clearly and balanced. She isn’t overly bitter, sheisn’t overly appreciative, she isn’t overly anything really. She simply invitesus to join her in a life of hard work, poverty, navigation of grants andservices, parental fears and primal needs, impossible choices and urgentdecisions. By bringing us with her we are inclined to feel bitterness, helplessness, and, onoccasion, appreciation, but only because they are appropriate.
Being asingle parent while having to share every other weekend with an abusive one isan impossible sort of exhaustion. Watching your little love deal with tantrumsrelated to a life hard to understand, feelings bigger than their bodies, homeswith hidden health dangers, foods that are minimally healthy, and consistentillnesses due to it all. It depletes your physical, emotional, and financialhealth; often keeping you from the gift of dreaming which can, itself, cost toomuch emotionally.
ButStephanie describes well the moments that re-energize and reinvigorate parents;the moments with your child(ren) that infect every ounce of your body andvision with a love that is special largely because of the urgentresponsibilities.
I haveknown a variety of single parents. I have been one myself. My mom, though, isthe only one I know who had a similar lack of support from any family.
And thoughmy mom found different ways to solve the same challenges Stephanie faced, shefaced the same sort of discrimination regarding her creative solutions forfeeding and housing all eight of us kids, as well as simply for being a singlemom.
An Aside: Stephanie Land navigated poverty and single parenting in the United States, my mom did it in both Canada and the United States.
For so manyof the reasons Stephanie shares in her book about the paperwork, the constantproving of your poverty, the all-day waiting for meetings that might end inmerely more requests for gathering paperwork, all while also working and tryingto get better work in order to do better while finding yourself losingnecessary benefits when finally doing a little bit better, never able to get even alittle bit ahead in order to become able to be properly ahead, for so many ofthese reasons my mom avoided the help of systems. This meant trying to find(and invent) other creative means of making enough money. (My mom painted houses, joined abartering group, did comedy shows that incorporated us kids at fairs andsimilar events, performed as characters at birthday parties, and a variety ofother interesting work that could either bring us along or have us older girlsbabysit the younger boys.) She also did do the paperwork for a few governmentand nonprofit organizations. She got help from a shelter for abused women,various disability groups, food banks, kind people she met with a desire to dogood and some disposable income, and one wonderful Christmas a truckload ofgifts from Canadian Tire.
The pointis, I recognized the exhaustion and hard work of trying to raise a child, orchildren, on your own while consistently being bombarded by the extra layers ofunnoticed obstacles; the nasty looks and cruel comments at grocery storecounters when using stamps or WIC coupons, the inability to host proper play-dates or bring foods to school functions, the inability to seek medicalcare for yourself when you make just a little too much to qualify and working through the pain and illness, thejudgements of everyone when your child has a public outburst, the constantworry that you are doing everything wrong while working so hard at getting itright.
Somethingevery reader can take away from this true story of one woman’s hard work, lowpay, and love for her child, is the ways our judgements hinder and hurt us. Theways they are most often wrong.
She was using birthcontrol but it didn’t work. She had been responsible. She had taken the steps required.Done the “right thing” for a young girl not planning for a family. She had beencareful, responsible.
Andthroughout the entire story she shares with us readers, she remainsimpressively so.
Maid is anexcellent read. For moms, for social workers, for people wondering about abuse,for people who want to better understand poverty – their own, or that ofothers.
Maid bringsus into a variety of homes to tidy up while encouraging us to take notice, towonder and imagine other lives, without being overly critical of the mess.
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Maid by Stephanie Land, sitting beside a cloth and fairy wings
NOTE: My daughter-in-law recommended this book to me. Not only recommended, lended! She has mentioned several times in conversation that she adores this book and so much about it; that she wants someone to talk with about it. What I do not yet know is specifically what she loved or why. She is the young mother of two lovely little girls. She and her husband (my fantastic son!) are in that place financially where every dollar they make must be carefully allotted for and if they make a little more they lose a little of the medical financial help they could qualify for. They love their little family fiercely and will do anything to keep it healthy, strong, and happy. So it is easy to imagine pretty much every element in this book is meaningful, helpful, relatable, understandable, inspirational to her. But rather than merely imagine, I think I'll call her. We now both have someone to talk with about this book. :D
