Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive is Stephanie Land’s first book. Land is a former professional house cleaner whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. Her writing explores issues related to systemic poverty, the hardships and stigmas associated with social services, surviving in the gig economy, and the challenges of motherhood. Maid was originally inspired by a Vox article she wrote about her work as a housekeeper, which went viral and attracted the attention of agent Jeff Kleinman. Less than a year later, her full-length book of essays debuted at #3 of the New York Times Best Seller list. The book earned a place on former President Barack Obama’s Summer Reading List and has been picked up by Netflix for a series produced by John Wells and Margot Robbie.

This SuperSummary guide features the 2019 Hachette Books edition of Maid.

Plot Summary

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive details Stephanie Land’s economic struggles in conjunction with her personal evolution. In a series of chronological, memoirist essays, Stephanie describes her gradual transition from single parenthood, poverty, and low-wage labor to a better life as a writer in Missoula, Montana.

As a young adult, Stephanie embarks on an ill-fated relationship with a man named Jamie. She accidentally becomes pregnant and decides not to abort her child, despite her precarious financial circumstances. The choice to raise her daughter Mia forces Stephanie to defer her goal of earning a college degree and becoming a writer.

After Jamie becomes abusive, Stephanie and Mia move into a shelter for people without homes. Then, with the help of her caseworker, she moves to Section 8 housing. Stephanie seeks gig work wherever possible, starting out as a landscaper, then moving on to a position with a cleaning company called Classic Clean. Stephanie’s cleaning income is never enough to fully support herself and her daughter, and she is forced to juggle numerous schedule challenges—such as the stigma surrounding government aid recipients.

As a housecleaner, Stephanie often feels invisible and taken for granted. Though she seldom meets her clients, she is privy to intimate details of their lives through the objects they leave around, and the lifestyle habits these objects gesture toward. She comes to identify each house with different objects and the emotional atmosphere they embody. Stephanie muses that in many cases, her clients’ affluence doesn’t seem to afford them happier lives than she has. Some of her clients treat her with kindness and dignity, offering her food and friendly conversation. Stephanie vows if she ever has enough money to hire a housecleaner, she will follow their example.

The book happily ends with Stephanie and Mia’s move to their dream town—Missoula, Montana—and Stephanie’s pursuit of a bachelor’s degree. Stephanie explains that she was only able to transcend her poverty, however, because she had experienced middle-class comfort as a child, and thus always believed that she could achieve a better future. Maid offers a compassionate portrait of a struggling mother’s life, examining the challenges of living beneath the poverty line, and the many inadequacies of American government aid. The book also poignantly explores the underside of upper-middle-class America from a housecleaner’s perspective.