", Alex sleeps inside a ferry station in "Maid. [8][9] Although she did not grow up in poverty, she spent the next several years living below the poverty line and relied on several welfare programs to cover necessary expenses; this later inspired her writing on issues of poverty and public policy. "I was embarrassed. Based on the best-selling memoir, Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land, the series tells the story of. The reality is the way we go about educating our country leaves millions stretched to their limits, with almost of half of students wondering how theyll find their next meal and even more than that drowning in debts theyll owe for a lifetime.". 69.163.234.236 My whole life felt like a lie, but I was good at telling the story, even to me. But Stephanie Land's 'Maid' isn't just about being a 'palatable poor person', "After Words with Stephanie Land | C-SPAN.org", "New book explores single mom's rise from the grips of poverty", "Matter of Fact With Soledad O'Brien S3 E22: Watch Full Episode Online", "Author of 'Maid,' who clawed way out of poverty, has message for Omahans", "Former Washington resident Stephanie Land's bestselling memoir inspires Netflix series 'Maid', "Mountain Money - February 25, 2019 Stephanie Land", "Stephanie Land on Putting the Pieces of Your Life Together and Finding Your Way", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stephanie_Land&oldid=1135784917, Use list-defined references from April 2019, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 26 January 2023, at 21:03. Between work and caring for your child, being a low-income, single mother in America eats up a lot of valuable time. Even though this kind of information could be crucial for viewers in similar circumstances, we don't really get to see Alex fight for different benefits regarding her education onscreen. Her mother, though not exactly "Mother of the Year" material, was the first in their family to go to college and earn a masters degree. As a single mother enrolled in school, Land was able to find creative ways to supplement her income. What emotions get brought up when discussions of national safety nets like child tax credits or paid leave get placed on a national stage? Back in August, we were having dinner, and I was silent for a little bit, then blurted out a couple of questions. But in Land's real life, these were everyday occurrences. Alexs real story is so much more than what we see onscreen. When author Stephanie Land was trying to sell the movie/TV rights to her bestselling 2019 memoir, she met with 10 different production companies. A post shared by Stephanie Land (@stepville). The show almost makes you root for the abuser in some episodes. Then I Hired a Maid. I assumed that people would pick up the book to read and purchase it because of that: "What's it like to be inside of other people's houses?" This is where she learned about the Womens Independence Scholarship Program, a scholarship specifically for survivors of domestic violence, which she received $3,000 through. We have estimated Stephanie Land's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets. It was an unplanned pregnancy and she wasn't married to the baby's father. When she first started working as a maid, Land says that she didn't snoop. Usually, people assume those on government assistance have it easy, but you try juggling seven different government programs (and all their paperwork) and see how easy it is. A post shared by Stephanie Land (@stepville) (opens in new tab). Since the series' release, Land has shared multiple pictures of the IRL events written inMaidthe book and depicted inMaidthe show. This happens a lot in television, movies, and novels: Someone is struggling financially, and somehow, almost magically, a wealthy person swoops in and saves the day. Claiming her daughter as a dependent on her taxes helped her get a government grant to pay for school. In the series, Alex doesnt want to accept help from her father because a) they are semi-estranged, and b) she eventually remembers that he abused her mother but in reality, Lands father was struggling himself after the housing crash and couldnt afford to feed two more people. This is revealed in theMaidbook, when Land loses the ability to buy organic milk for her daughter with WIC, the program opting to replace organic options with inexpensive alternatives, like skim milk. Wed been arguing for weeks. She seems to live in a constant state of hustle-and-bustle, meeting people through work and assistance programs. We drove around, I showed them the trailer that I lived in but I also shared hundreds of photos with them. Were there any moments from the Maid book that you felt the series didn't highlight? In The Missing Piece, the reader follows a simply drawn line throughout the pages. Memes became extremely popular during this time (its weird to think of the internet without memes, but there was a before time), and a lot of people used social media (specifically Facebook) to spread hateful, racist, and classist rhetoric and disinformation. In Maid, Alex spends quite a bit of time in a domestic violence shelter, where she and her daughter can have a temporary safe place to live, make some friends and allies, and obtain some free meals and clothing. Hed just adopted Coraline and we were playing catch on a sunny evening, feeling like the misery of winter and my husbands court case was well behind us. And it just, like - so one time, I looked, and I'm like, well, how many antibiotics are they on, and, like, if it was for her or for him." One Harvard study concluded that unhealthy diets may cost less because food policies have focused on the production of inexpensive, high volume commodities. One afternoon, a few weeks before I finally told him to leave, we were all in the backyard together. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's everything we know about Land, and what happened to the real-life Alex. It follows Alex, a young woman who leaves her abusive boyfriend and navigates the American welfare system while getting whatever work she can cleaning houses. Land grew up between Washington and Anchorage, Alaska,[5] in a middle class household. A Maid fact-check reveals that the real Stephanie Land was 28 when she was pregnant with her daughter Mia (today, Mia goes by her middle name, Story). It ended up on the New York Times Best Seller List and Obama's 2019 Summer Reading List, in addition to being optioned for the Netflix series. Dont you miss him? she would ask me, almost desperately. Several of the symptoms I already had: the sore neck, the bruising, the blotchy chest, pain, and difficulty swallowing. Her daughter was constantly in and out of doctors offices for chronic ear infections and upper-respiratory infections, but she personally couldnt afford to see a doctor for her chronic pain, sinus infections, and constant coughs. But in 2008 (amid the Great Recession), most middle-class Americans were just waking up to this realization including Land. There were a lot of memes going around at the time about how people should be drug-tested for welfare, and a lot of my friends would post on Facebook and social media some type of hatred for people on food stamps. I am a success story. However, Land and Jamie's story is different than Alex and Sean's. Whereas Alex met Sean after an open mic, Land met Jamie while she was walking home after a shift at the . A Pell Grant, SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), TBRA (HOME Tenant-Based Rental Assistance), LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program), WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children), Medicaid, and a childcare government grant are all the programs that she and her daughter needed to barely survive and not starve. In real-life, Land also attended college while continuing to clean houses and take care of her kid, Story. New York, Shell be crowned alongside her husband King Charles at the Coronation. The program then added $10 for produce, except potatoes, because people tend to fry them or add lots of butter. If she went over $10 in fresh produce, the check would be void. After graduating college, Land started working as a freelance writer for parenting magazines. So before i watched the series, I was really nervous because there's so many ways you can get poverty wrong and perpetuate stigmas even more. There was no authentic representation of my life anywhere. She said that he had kind of gradually built up to being violent. All the nudity of porn, but with the plot and storylines of mainstream film. Stephanie fell pregnant within just months of meeting her boyfriend Jamie. National Domestic Violence Hotline received more calls in the month after Maid premiere than any other month in its entire 25-year history. Then Mia turned to me with this smile and said: You sure know how to pick the good ones. She was referring to her stepdad, a man she witnessed hurting me twice in one evening. (My child and I) watched the first two episodes in my bed on my laptop, kind of cuddled up together. Something for everyone interested in hair, makeup, style, and body positivity. Why do you think your story resonated so strongly with readers at that time, and why do you think it continues to entice audiences? She felt like her friends did not want to hear about the struggles of her life over and over, and she isolated herself from her closest companions. Theending ofMaid (opens in new tab)shows Land's fictional avatar Alex moving to Missoula, Montana, to study creative writing in college. There was no way for me to walk into a government office and tell them I needed enough money to compensate for the meager wages I needed in order to pay for a home. This is in response to the judgment she felt from people all around her while the economy was in collapse and millions of others were struggling through similar hardships. It no longer has time to sing, to stop and look at flowers, and talk to frogs. They asked me if Id lost control of bodily functions or consciousness. And he finally did, for good. Our protagonist onscreen in Maid seems to be a lone wolf, with virtually no friends and barely any family. Yes, Land was loaned a car by someone she had been on a date with, but not a place to live. My four-year-old daughter had started to mimic his posturing, his finger-pointing, and even told me to go away because my face looked bad. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. Nate is not Sean, or Alex's dad Hank (Billy Burke), or Paula's ex-partner Basil (Toby Levins), or Sean's best friend Ethan . For example, there was the Porn House, named for the numerous issues of Hustler in the nightstand and the bottle of lubricant that sat by the alarm clock. Who Is Hasnat Khan, Princess Dianas Boyfriend on Season 5 of The Crown? Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. On the flip side, Land learns that a lot of people in positions of power will purposely not follow rules to discriminate against the poor. "[19] In The Washington Post, Jenner Rogers writes, "Maid isnt about how hard work can save you but about how false that idea is. As previously stated, Alex seems to operate in isolation, but we never get to see how alone she really is. I really felt like the only time I had any value as a human being was when I was actively working. There was a part of me that knew why they were listening. Eventually, Land made too much money (let that sink in) to qualify for Medicaid, leaving only her daughter insured by the program. Then I Hired a Maid", "She has a bestseller and hit Netflix series. He thought he'd never have to work again."This was the attitude of Stephanie Land, whose estranged husband has tried to prevent her from writing about him. I had known Jamie only four months, and his rage, his hatred toward me, was frightening." Myself included. You need to listen to people in your own communities and you especially need to listen to people of color. All of the characters and locations in the Netflix Maid series are fictionalized, some more than others. When she isnt writing or checking Twitter, shes probably watching the latest K-drama or giving a concert performance in her car. They forget people aren't actually being paid a living wage. Today, Land is remarried with a blended family of four. I thought they did really well with showing that this person who is totally charming on the outside and everybody else thinks is this wonderful guy, everybody's heartthrob, can be really violent at home and just kicks you down in so many ways. In researching the Maid true story, we discovered that the Netflix series was inspired by Stephanie Land's 2019 memoir Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive. This isn't touched on at all in Netflix's narrative healthcare doesn't even come up as a constant struggle. Only this time around, Lands character is named Alex, and her ex is named Sean (Nick Robinson) instead of Jaime. Though I wouldnt admit it then, I knew Id chosen a path filled with emotional landmines. There typically arent any magical, wealthy benefactors waiting to make your life easier. He was renamed Sean in the Netflix series and played by Nick Robinson). Yes. The limited series stars Margaret Qualley (Once Upon A Time In Hollywood) as a single mother who, after fleeing from her abusive ex, is forced to take a low-paying job with a cleaning service that caters to the wealthy. . She was also able to take out the maximum amount of student loans to make ends meet, which gave her more of a cushion, and eventually, helped her move to Missoula to attend the University of Montana. Performance & security by Cloudflare. Three months after we got married, I called the police for help. Perspective by Stephanie Land. Thats hardly the whole story, however. One year later, she published an essay about working as a housekeeper inVox (opens in new tab), which went viral and led to her getting a book agent. [4] Land has also written several articles about maid service work, abuse and poverty in the United States. When reading Maid, it is safe to assume the character of Sean is based on Jamie, who is Lands ex-boyfriend and father of her daughter. This meant making characters who weren't heavily featured in the book, including her social worker and her boss, more integral to the story than they were in real life. People have blamed my tumble into poverty on an unexpected pregnancy. In the real story, none of this happens. Id say, Jesus loves you though one man smiles at me and said, He seems to love you a little more. Land was under the impression that she would always be safe; she never questioned it until it was too late. What do you think people misunderstand about the nature of poverty? -NPR, Yes. I also started to get really angry. Over time, she took on private clients in addition to the ones she had with the cleaning agency. Land says that this fictionalization also allowed more diversity to be brought into the series.Though Maid is not a highly accurate representation of Land's own experience and the people involved, she described it in an Instagram post as "an obscenely authentic visual representation of what it's like to struggle to get by. She expanded her 2015Vox article, titled "I spent 2 years cleaning houses. I think my biggest role as a parent is teaching empathy. "[20] Kirkus Reviews concludes that Maid is "[a]n important memoir that should be required reading for anyone who has never struggled with poverty. "He kind of forcefully asked us to leave," Land told NPR. On that line is a circle with a triangle-shaped chunk thats absent from it. When the couple met and married he worked at KOLD, they divorced in 2006. In Lands story, she becomes so embarrassed and full of shame that she stops using WIC altogether, even though she absolutely needs it. Even though Alex states, "I am on seven different forms of government assistance" in the show, they never go into too much detail about these programs. And that was the first time I cried watching the show. They have a blended family consisting four children. I don't know the body remembers and I think the series is doing that for a lot of people. Police officers photographed the bruises around her neck. Netflix owes us answers after that ending. Kates coat was a Catherine Walker rewear; Diana wore her Moschino suit numerous times. My desire for that happy ending especially as a woman whod been a single mom for almost a decade was a rushing current too strong to fight. Out of desperation, I asked him to go back to work, to give me some space, and he told me that wasnt part of the deal in marrying me. 02:07 - Source: CNN. Class will be about the "hard truths of college education," combining her personal experience with reporting to expose the "outrageous cost, predatory practices, and discriminatory policies faced by Americans," perAssociated Press (opens in new tab). It was a short-lived marriage that had become physically violent. Guests also had to maintain a clean house, something that Land was used to doing given her line of work at the time. We don't like to listen to people who are still angry, who are still in poverty, especially people of color. Reporting on what you care about. Someone like the girl theyd known in high school whod been quiet but nice. The gritty and intense series, starring Margaret Qualley, follows newly single mother Alex and her daughter, Maddie, as they recover from the trauma of abuse and neglect. In the book, Land and Story live with Lands father for a short time, and barely see Lands expatriate mother at all. Here are some of the biggest differences between the Netflix series and the memoir: Alex came from a middle-class upbringing. It was then that she said, "No, I'm calling the police; I don't want you here." There are a lot of rules to being poor in America. All the dance numbers! Our main purpose of writing is so we don't feel alone and that others don't feel alone. Wealthy clients of hers would go on racist rants about Mexican families using food stamps and being dressed to the nines, while not realizing that the maid they were saying this to was also on government assistance. The heart-wrenching show has captivated fans, who have been asking whetherMaidis based on a true story. 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