The true story behind Netflix's "Maid"

Brut America

Her house cleaning job kept her out of a homeless shelter. Then, she became a bestselling author, and her story was made into the new Netflix series "Maid"...  Stephanie Land tells Brut her story.

Transcript

00:00I got into college. I wanted to be a writer, but I got pregnant. Now I'm a single mom.

00:16There was such an erasure of my whole self in that job. And I felt very disposable. And I felt

00:26like I didn't matter when that job was everything to me. If I didn't have that job,

00:32then I would be back in a homeless shelter within a couple of weeks.

00:40I don't think I can do this. So quit. I can't quit.

00:44I was raised in a privileged scenario. White, suburban. And it happened incredibly fast. I

00:53was in a relationship that was supposed to be finite. We were about to go our separate ways

01:03when I found out I was pregnant. And just kind of as soon as I found out I was pregnant,

01:08we were living together. I wasn't allowed to work because then he would have to babysit,

01:16he said. And he didn't want to do that. And he had spent all of my savings. So when he kicked us

01:23out, I had, I think, what was left of my tax refund. And that was only a couple hundred dollars.

01:31My family wasn't able to help out. So we ended up in a homeless shelter.

01:34Why are you here? We don't have anywhere to sleep tonight.

01:38So you're homeless? I had a home and then we left it.

02:01It's hard to get a job when you have a nine or 10 month old that you're caring for full time.

02:12I didn't have a college degree. I didn't have much professional experience. So I started

02:17cleaning houses. As far as my clients, I don't know if anyone really realized that I was a

02:24human being. The main purpose of the job was to be very visible. I had to leave evidence in the

02:31house that I was obviously there. I vacuumed and I dusted. Everything smelled good. But if I left

02:37any evidence that I had been there as a human being, they would often call and complain if I

02:45left a rag accidentally or if I left footprints on the carpet. And that was incredibly demeaning.

02:50We compost. The bin is labeled compost. Can you read or should I show you?

02:55I can read.

03:10There were times that my body gave up. I mean, a panic attack is very all encompassing. It's

03:18kind of terrifying to be sitting in a client's bathtub, unable to breathe because I'm having a

03:25panic attack. And I only have three hours to finish this whole entire house. So I started

03:30telling myself, I love you and I'm here for you. And I don't know how much it actually helped,

03:39but it was soothing. And I think that mantra helps knowing somehow that I

03:47would never give up on myself and that I would always be there for me.

04:09The reality is that Americans start off in life severely misaligned. I mean, there's

04:21people who are born into privilege. They are born on a track that they are set up for life.

04:28When we tell people, like, if you work hard enough, you'll make it in this country.

04:33And that is that the work that they do will support them. And our minimum wage hasn't

04:40increased in two decades or more. Currently, a single mother working minimum wage would have

04:47to work 140 hours a week just to make ends meet. And so when you tell a person to work hard and

04:55they'll make it, that's absolutely impossible when we're not even paying them enough to support

05:00themselves or their families. I think in the United States,

05:08we don't trust people with cash. I mean, we need some type of universal basic income. For me,

05:16that has always been the heart of every issue that poor people face is it is assumed that they

05:25are lazy and don't want to work when really poor people are the hardest working population.

05:33And they are not only the hardest working, they are the people that we rely heavily on.

05:39And for some reason, they always fall in the cracks, I think, because rich people

05:48in America make decisions for poor people. And how would they know what decisions to make without

05:55even ever experiencing what their lives are like? The more that we tell our stories, the more that

06:06we know that we're all experiencing similar things. I think there's a lot of shame wrapped

06:14up in struggle. But the other part of why my story is important is really wrapped in privilege.

06:25I am a white woman who is educated. People use articulate and resilient. I am the rags to riches

06:33story. I am the successful story. And you should have a person of color standing up here. You

06:38should have people who are from systemic poverty and systemic racism. And so I try to talk about

06:48that as much as possible and hope that because people are listening to my story, that they'll

06:54start listening to the stories that really matter.

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