2020-6 “Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive” by Stephanie Lane (2019)
I “read” this book as an audio book in my car over the course of a week.
I read “Maid” because, it was one of the recent bestsellers by an unknown female author around my age, along with “Educated” the next book on my list. It was 1. well-written, 2. informative, and 3. relatable, but 1. somewhat formulaic (hero’s journey), 2. predictable, and 3. lukewarm in its promotion of gender and social equality.
I was deeply impacted by “Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America” (2001) by Barbara Ehrenreich, when I read it in the summer of 2006. Had I known that Land was supported by “Economic Hardship Reporting Project” a nonprofit organization Ehrenreich founded, I would have been even more drawn to the book. Ehrenreich’s forward may have peaked my intrigue to Land’s book a little too much, making me too eager with expectations, impossible to satisfy.
The story is self-explanatory from the title. An unplanned pregnancy, with a casual boyfriend who lives in a trailer, ends Land up in an abusive marriage with the resentful father of her newborn baby. Escaping the abuse, Land and the baby find themselves in a homeless shelter. From there, the author finds work as a maid, in between navigating the government assistance programs with long names and demanding system. She is determined to earn more, attain a college degree, and achieve better future prospects for herself and her daughter.
Fellow shoppers and even her friends blurt out “you are welcome” to the author, because they see their tax money funding the programs that feed, clothe and house Land and Mia. Land does not necessarily see it that way – she is offended by the social branding that comes with the assistance, and the impossible hoops applicants are asked to jump through while enduring patronizing bureaucrats, in order to prove her qualification for these welfare programs. What was more painful to read, for me, was the general lack of resources among her family and friends. Some are protective of what little they have, unwilling to share. Others exert themselves and then run into an impossible choice between their own sustainability at the expense turning their backs to Land and Mia. Land keeps appealing her plights through her social media posts and blogs. The physical demand of working as a maid. The economic impossibility. The ache of social isolation as a result of poverty, single parenting, general lack of social ignorance about situations of those like hers. Sometimes, readers show unexpected kindness and even generosity.
As musicians, we go back and forth between the extreme inequity of this country. We play outreach concerts for homeless shelters and the County hospitals. We dine with patrons and board members of musical institutions. However posh a restaurant we get to eat at occasionally, how many ever times we put on evening gowns every month, we are constantly aware of our vulnerable economic position. The market condition is volatile. We are the prototype of “gig economy.” We often have no protection in the midst of an extreme competition. We are always one hospitalization, one injury, one economic crisis away from being maids ourselves. I wonder if our presenters and patrons can ever imagine what it is like, when they try to get us to play for a meal.
While Land’s determination, courage and the success of her memoir are all amazing feat of accomplishment, worthy of admiration, I found it scary to let myself identify with her narrative, because I could have easily been her. Even today, I know my own colleagues, very talented musicians, who are battling the same impossible fight Land describes in the book. I wonder what makes this book a bestseller. Who reads it, and why? As an entertaining exotic horror story to the very wealthy? To appreciate what you have? As a lesson on poverty, social awareness? Or as a Cinderella story to give readers like her hope? Will this book be read a hundred, two hundred years from today? Why do I not think so?