A review by indreni
Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land
challenging
sad
slow-paced
4.25
This book made me feel all sorts of emotions. Examining my emotional responses to various things in the book was very insightful and I feel like I learned from it.
Fundamentally, of course, this book is about how we do low-wage work in this country combined with government assistance. How there is a lack of natural safety nets for so many people, and the safety nets there are involved incredibly time-consuming, tangled processes to obtain and maintain them.
But there are other themes in this book that speak to issues that are even more insidious. For example, our medical system and the trauma it can cause mothers. Having parents that don't support you growing up and how that affects your early adulthood. Judgment against people who are working low-wage jobs and/or in poverty and on government assistance. Misogyny and emotional/verbal abuse in bad relationships.
It's not a crime to be poor and yet many times poor people are just often treated that way for no reason. It's not the fault of low-wage workers if their jobs don't pay enough to survive and afford even modest housing and food for their families. Rather, as the book indicates, it's almost deliberate that some employers pay artificially low wages with the expectation that their employees will cover the rest with government assistance programs
Then sometimes when a worker gets ahead and gets a raise of even a few dollars, that could put them over the income threshold for their government assistance and they lose hundreds of dollars in benefits. This sort of problem is a disadvantage and needs to be fixed in our system.
Another thing that really made me think in the book was the author's point about her middle class clients. Oftentimes they seem to be relying on antidepressants and had a host of health problems and seemed no more happy than she was, even if slightly more economically comfortable. She talked about how the incredible cost and effort it takes to maintain at least the facade of a middle-class lifestyle in this country can also be toxic for people.
Basically, this was not just a book about poverty or single motherhood, although it was primarily about those things. It was a commentary on our economic system in general, and the disadvantages young people face when they don't have supportive family.
Fundamentally, of course, this book is about how we do low-wage work in this country combined with government assistance. How there is a lack of natural safety nets for so many people, and the safety nets there are involved incredibly time-consuming, tangled processes to obtain and maintain them.
But there are other themes in this book that speak to issues that are even more insidious. For example, our medical system and the trauma it can cause mothers. Having parents that don't support you growing up and how that affects your early adulthood. Judgment against people who are working low-wage jobs and/or in poverty and on government assistance. Misogyny and emotional/verbal abuse in bad relationships.
It's not a crime to be poor and yet many times poor people are just often treated that way for no reason. It's not the fault of low-wage workers if their jobs don't pay enough to survive and afford even modest housing and food for their families. Rather, as the book indicates, it's almost deliberate that some employers pay artificially low wages with the expectation that their employees will cover the rest with government assistance programs
Then sometimes when a worker gets ahead and gets a raise of even a few dollars, that could put them over the income threshold for their government assistance and they lose hundreds of dollars in benefits. This sort of problem is a disadvantage and needs to be fixed in our system.
Another thing that really made me think in the book was the author's point about her middle class clients. Oftentimes they seem to be relying on antidepressants and had a host of health problems and seemed no more happy than she was, even if slightly more economically comfortable. She talked about how the incredible cost and effort it takes to maintain at least the facade of a middle-class lifestyle in this country can also be toxic for people.
Basically, this was not just a book about poverty or single motherhood, although it was primarily about those things. It was a commentary on our economic system in general, and the disadvantages young people face when they don't have supportive family.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Domestic abuse and Emotional abuse
Minor: Medical trauma