Maid: Hard work, Low Pay and a Mother’s Will to Survive

Several years ago I met a young woman at a coffee shop. She wore short braids, overalls over a T shirt, and a tiny baby tucked gently on her right elbow. It was an interview of sorts. She came highly recommended by my friends at Mamalode magazine. Her newborn daughter’s presence told me one of two things. She either didn’t see our visit as an interview or didn’t have any options for childcare that day.

A single mother of two, Stephanie Land had recently finished her creative writing degree at the University of Montana. I liked her immediately.  We had a fun email exchange, but she never responded to my invitation to re-write her resume as a kind of second interview.

I’m so glad she didn’t.

What Ms. Land did instead was write a memoir. Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay and a Mother’s Will to Survive just debuted  #3 on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Land writes of working as a maid in unrelenting and precarious poverty. “I knew that at any moment, a breeze could come and blow me away.” She recalls her own difficult experience and shines a light on the invisible “working poor.”

Roxane Gay, NYT bestselling author says, “[Maid] illuminates the struggles of poverty,…the unrelenting frustration of having no safety net, the ways in which our society is systemically designed to keep impoverished people mired in poverty, [and] the indignity of poverty by way of unmovable bureaucracy.”

I’ve just started reading and I can’t put it down. Already I can say with certainty that Maid memoir is remarkable, recommended reading.

It is also an example of purpose.

Calls come not only from within — intuitive nudges, physical and emotional guidance, longing, passions, dreams, talents, etc. — but also from outer experiences.

I’m confident Stephanie Land could have written some wonderful resumes for Team Rainmaker. I’m totally inspired that she instead channeled her prior difficult era in answer to her call.  

In the spirit of full disclosure, if you purchase Maid via the above link, I’ll receive a tiny commission.