Stephanie Land (1) (1978–)

Land writes beautifully about being trapped in low-wage jobs and the residue of an abusive relationship, with not a penny to spare or a day to give to, say, a child’s illness without a further spiral. She’s a sharp observer of the houses she cleans and the miseries and happinesses of the wealthy or at least not-desperate people who paid her (or her employer) to clean. Her story is only as happy as it is (which is to say, it ends on an upwards trajectory) because she was actually able to show more access government benefits like subsidized housing, food stamps, and college assistance, and because she had friends—some made online—who could occasionally chip in, rather than themselves being just as desperate. show less

Maid is one of those stories that people love to read to make themselves feel learned and liberal. Stephanie Land’s story is tragic, and there is no doubt that she had to overcome a lot in the name of survival. I want to love Maid and tout it as a valuable insight into our welfare system, which it is and yet is not. The thing is that Ms. Land is white, which means her experiences with government assistance and poverty are a whole hell of a lot different than someone else’s experience. show more Not once does Ms. Land recognize this fact as she tells her story. She does not acknowledge the fact that people are more willing to bargain with her or trust her in their homes because she is blond and she is white. She does not recognize the privilege that comes with white skin, and there is just one area where I find fault with the book.

At one point in time, Ms. Land mentions visiting her mother in France, and the statement struck me as so incongruous with her story that I stopped reading for the day. You see, Ms. Land mentions several times how her family has a history of struggling with poverty and how her parents couldn’t help her when her life fell apart because they had money problems of their own. Ms. Land also intimates that her money problems started early, that she always had one foot on the poverty line and relied on her boyfriend to keep her above the line. Throughout all this, she somehow finds a way to visit her mother in France, where she moved after Stephanie was out of the house and on her own. I grew up firmly entrenched in the middle class to two teachers. We were not poor; we went on vacations every year and could afford to eat out once in a while. But not once while I was growing up could my parents afford to fly to Europe. I know this one statement should not bother me in light of what Ms. Land shows regarding the assistance programs, but I still wonder how Ms. Land could afford that trip to France when she was working in coffee shops and bars and relying on her boyfriend to help with bills and rent. A little bit of sympathy at her situation dissolved upon reading that line, never to return.

I fear that people are going to treat Maid as they did Hillybilly Elegy, which means they are going to read it and consider themselves experts in all things welfare-related. It is a remarkable story, but it is not the only story. I would argue it is not the typical story in any fashion. Ms. Land, growing up to middle-class parents, has already had access to privileges most people in the welfare system will never have. That and the color of her skin means her experiences are not the same as a person of color or someone for whom English is a second language. That she does not explicitly identify these privileges bothers me, and the fact that Maid is gaining the buzz it already has bothers me even more. I can’t say that you shouldn’t read it, but I recommend you go in knowing its faults and that Ms. Land’s story, while tragic, is still not the typical story of someone on welfare. show less

"Poverty was like a stagnant pool of mud that pulled at our feet and refused to let go." from Maid by Stephanie Land

I'll be brutally honest, and you can "unfollow" me if you want, I don't care, but ever since Presidents Roosevelt and Johnson created social programs to help the poor there have been politicians determined to slash, limit, and end them. And one of their methods is to vilify the poor as blood-sucking, lazy, ignorant, "self-entitled" criminals who live off the hard earned tax show more dollars squeezed from hard-working, honest, salt-of-the-earth, red-blooded Americas.

I have known some of "those people," and yes, they sometimes made bad choices, but they also worked to improve their lives. Like my cousin who ran away at sixteen and returned, pregnant, without a high school degree. She was on welfare and food stamps. She also got a GED and learned to drive and found a job...which was eliminated by budget cuts. After floundering for some time, she found work again, and even love. Then died young of a horrible autoimmune disease.

Or the couple who worked abroad to teach English as a second language to pay off their school debts, then returned to America and could not find jobs. The wife returned to school for an advanced degree. She graduated after the economy tanked and still could not find work in her area. They relied on WIC when their child was born. They have lived in poverty their entire marriage, the woman working for ETS and online tutoring.

Stephanie Land had dreams, hoping some day to go to college. Her parents had split up, her mom's husband resentful and her dad broke because of the recession. She was self-supporting when she became pregnant. When she decided to keep her baby her boyfriend became abusive. She was driven to take her daughter and leave him.

And so began her descent into the world of homelessness, poverty, the red-tape web of government programs. She worked as a maid, even though she suffered from a pinched nerve and back pain and allergies. The pay was miserable, her travel expenses uncovered. She found housing that was inadequate, unsafe, and unhealthy. Black mold kept her daughter perpetually sick with sinus and ear infections.

I know about that. Our infant son was ill most of the year with allergies, sinus infections, ad ear infections. It made him fussy and overactive and every time he was sick it made his development lag. We were lucky. We could address the environmental causes. We found a specialist who treated him throughout his childhood.

Maid is Stephanie Land's story of those years when she struggled to provide for her daughter. She documents how hard it is to obtain assistance and even the knowledge of what aid is available, the everlasting exhaustion of having to work full time, taking her daughter to and from daycare, and raise her child on a razor-thin budget. All while cleaning the large homes of strangers.

And that is the other side of the book, the people who hire help at less than minimum wage, some who show consideration and others who like her invisible. How a maid knows more about her clients than they can imagine.

Land worked hard. Really hard. She had to. Finally, she was able to go to school and write this book. She crawled out of the mire. What is amazing is that anyone can escape poverty. You earn a few dollars more and you lose benefits.

Land is an excellent writer. She created scenes that broke my heart, such as when her mother and her new husband come to help Land move. Her mom suggests they go out to lunch, then expects Land to pay for the meal. Land had $10 left until the end of the month. Even knowing this, they accepted it. Then, her mom's husband complained Land acted 'entitled'. I was so angry! I felt heartbroken that Land and her daughter were shown so little charity.

I think about the Universal Basic Income idea that I have read about. How if Land received $1,000 a month she would have been able to provide her daughter with quality daycare or healthy housing. She would have been able to spend more time on her degree and work fewer weekends. She would have been off government assistance years sooner.

But that's not how the system works. Because we don't trust poor people to do the right thing. We don't trust them to want to have a better life. We don't believe they are willing to work hard--work at all.

Remember The Ghost of Christmas Present who shows Scrooge the children hiding under his robes, Ignorance and
Want? We have the power to end ignorance and want. We choose not to. Instead, we tell people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, even when they are without shoes.

That's my rant. Yes, progressive liberal stuff. But also in the spirit of the Christ who told us that if we have two shirts, give one to the poor. The Christ who said not to judge other's faults and ignore your larger ones--judging being the larger one. The Christ who taught mercy to strangers.

Perhaps Land's memoir will make people take a second look at mothers on assistance. Under the cinders is a princess striving to blossom.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review. show less

Stephanie Land's MAID (2019), a gift from my daughter, was, I've learned, a monster bestseller five years ago, now translated into several languages, and soon to be a Netflix film. I guess I missed all that hoopla somehow, but I'm very happy for the author, because the book itself, a memoir, is one of the saddest damn stories I've read in a long time. It chronicles her hardscrabble years of extreme poverty and barely scraping by as a single mom who cleaned houses for a living and lived in a show more tiny, mold-infested studio apartment with her toddler daughter, who was often sick from their substandard living conditions. There is much here too about the red tape of welfare and government programs for the poor - and it's not very flattering - as well as the less than sympathetic attitudes of people who are better off. Land is an excellent writer and never gives in to mawkish self-pity, but instead just tells it like it was, including how she sometimes had to just weep at the hopelessness of her situation. I winced my way through the whole thing, hoping against hope that things would improve for her. Did they? Read the book. It's a good one. Very highly recommended.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less