Maid by Stephanie Land
(Format used for this read: Audiobook)
I always am intrigued by autobiographies and find them extremely valuable in teaching me how to listen to people who have different life experiences than my own…
to learn, to have empathy and to break down biases and stereotypes I have deep inside my thought processes.
This book did all those things.
Here is a summary:
“Evicted meets Nickel and Dimed in Stephanie Land’s memoir about working as a maid, a beautiful and gritty exploration of poverty in America. Includes a foreword by Barbara Ehrenreich.
At 28, Stephanie Land’s plans of breaking free from the roots of her hometown in the Pacific Northwest to chase her dreams of attending a university and becoming a writer, were cut short when a summer fling turned into an unexpected pregnancy. She turned to housekeeping to make ends meet, and with a tenacious grip on her dream to provide her daughter the very best life possible, Stephanie worked days and took classes online to earn a college degree, and began to write relentlessly.
She wrote the true stories that weren’t being told: the stories of overworked and underpaid Americans. Of living on food stamps and WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) coupons to eat. Of the government programs that provided her housing, but that doubled as halfway houses. The aloof government employees who called her lucky for receiving assistance while she didn’t feel lucky at all. She wrote to remember the fight, to eventually cut through the deep-rooted stigmas of the working poor.
Maid explores the underbelly of upper-middle class America and the reality of what it’s like to be in service to them. “I’d become a nameless ghost,” Stephanie writes about her relationship with her clients, many of whom do not know her from any other cleaner, but who she learns plenty about. As she begins to discover more about her clients’ lives-their sadness and love, too-she begins to find hope in her own path.
Her compassionate, unflinching writing as a journalist gives voice to the “servant” worker, and those pursuing the American Dream from below the poverty line. Maid is Stephanie’s story, but it’s not her alone. It is an inspiring testament to the strength, determination, and ultimate triumph of the human spirit.”
I recognize and respect the vulnerability it took for the author to write this book…she was direct and honest and did not candy coat any of her truths or experiences.
I have always been in the category of “middle class” and have never know the fear of losing a place to live or not having food on my table…I truly can not even imagine.
I have never had to struggle in the ways she had to and I know there are so so so many women fighting just as hard to survive and barely making ends meet…it broke me apart to hear her explain it all.
I uncomfortably realized while reading this that I hold quite a few negative stereotypes of people in the service industry and also on government assistance…things I wasn’t even aware of until I heard the other side of the story by hearing her words.
I need to fix my thoughts by listening more to people’s stories and learning more about the systems we have in place.
I need to do better.
My heart aches for how the system fails so many children and families…and even though there are policies and programs set in place that are supposed to “help”, those things most often times cause so much harm or further damage.
The idea that in our country you can bust your ass working three jobs and still not be able to have enough to meet your basic needs is infuriating…I can understand how hopeless and stuck that can make so many feel.
We need to do better.
I greatly recommend this book.