J. Lauren White

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive (Hachette Books) by Stephanie Land

Review by Lauren White

There are likely abundant white papers that work to explain the circumstances which lead to and perpetuate poverty; that dissect the “cycle” and identify which factors turn financial insecurity into a deep, dark trap. However, nothing teaches us more about anything in this world than complete immersion.

In Maid, author Stephanie Land invites us to witness as she confronts an abusive ex-boyfriend who’s gambling with her daughter’s joy; as she wears out her welcome with family and anxiously plots her next move; as she combs the roadside for a lost doll, though every mile driven and minute wasted could send her straight back to zero; as she bares her soul from a bathtub, in the home of a perfect stranger, about whom she knows volumes just from scrubbing their toilets and emptying their trash bins.

As a maid, she knows where her clients sit and stand throughout the day based on cigarette ash and indents in the couch cushions. She knows who they’ve lost based on dusty toiletries and mementos. She knows how they spend, how they live, that they struggle, that they’re dying.

Yet, all the while, as she toils quietly and remotely through their homes, cleaning and wiping and collecting, she carries the weight of a life she’d never anticipated. A life in which she had to make the hardest choices and work, not just hope, for the best outcomes. A life in which every dollar had to be accounted for; in which the smallest setback meant a fast and sheer slide; and in which a child’s happiness and well-being were the ever-constant pulse that drove every next move.

Immerse yourself in Land’s story, and remove your coat of judgement. Journey with her through her experiences with life, money, love and guilt; a journey that is uniquely hers and so unrestrained that it feels private. Travel from the bottom of a dark pit, feeling guilt for the things you can’t give your child and wish you could; for the life you set up for yourself and had taken violently away from you; for the decisions that you know are better for your daughter and yourself, but that might not appear to be so.

At a glance, you know nothing of that woman on the roadside, frantically searching for a red-haired doll, having made the decision that her daughter’s joy (and her own salvation from an inevitable tantrum) was more important than everything else at risk. These are the decisions of a mother surviving, climbing out from under the weight while maintaining the glowing, beating joy of her daughter’s childhood, promising that she will not stop until she, too, can have that glowing, beating joy.  

Feature Image: Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash