Alexs real story is so much more than what we see onscreen. (opens in new tab)Though much of the show is fictionalized, adding in new characters and including more of Alex's mother and father, the larger arc and many of the scenes with Alex and her daughter, Maddy, come from Land's real life, when she worked as a maid after leaving an abusive relationship. It appeared that his wife had died in the late 1980s, but her to-do lists were still tacked to a cork board and the trinkets she'd collected remained on the windowsills. You get creative. Social media contributed to rising stigmas about poverty and government assistance. Stories like Stephanie Lands (and subsequently, Alexs) are far too common, yet rarely get heard. 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. Since then, the success of her book has led to more financial stability. 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. 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. She also had another daughter, who is seven, in addition to Storyknown as Mia in the book and Maddy in the shownow 14. [27], Stephanie Land is married to Tim Faust and they live as a blended family with four children. All I have to do is imagine him walking around the house and my body begins to show the symptoms of a panic attack. Land didnt even find out about getting a notice of relocation through a lawyer; she learned that through her advocate at Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services. 2023 BDG Media, Inc. All rights reserved. "It made me feel kind of less wanted." She ended up working "anywhere from 20 to 25 hours a week." They recreated a lot of those and one of those things was the ponies. "I think, at one point, I had about seven all at once," the real Stephanie Land told NPR. Meanwhile, in the series, Paula Alexs mother, played by Qualleys real-life mom, Andie MacDowell is a constant, but unreliable, presence in her daughter and grandchilds lives. She had housing assistance, Medicaid, a Pell Grant for college tuition, LIHEAP for help with utilities, WIC checks for supplemental nutrition for new mothers and children, child care grants, and was enrolled in the SNAP program for food stamps. -NPR, Yes. She received messages full of encouragement and love; some even sent her money. [22] On October 24, 2021, Forbes reported that Maid has remained in the most viewed "Top 5 Shows" since its release in numerous countries. The first sentence of Stephanie Land's memoir states, "My daughter learned to walk in a homeless shelter." Stephanie Land (born September 1978) is an American writer and public speaker. Land said about the book, "When we think of economic insecurity we often think of the down and out. Only this time around, Land's character is named Alex, and her ex is named Sean (Nick Robinson) instead of Jaime. (In one episode, a fellow resident at the battered women's shelter gives Alex and her daughter hundreds of left-over My Little Pony dolls. Her child, a fictionalized version of Story, is called Maddy (Rylea Nevaeh Whittet). Yes, Stephanie is now happily married to her partner Tim Faust. In Stephanie Lands bookMaid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive, which inspired the series, Land is focused on the struggle to persevere in a system built for failure. No. But in Land's real life, these were everyday occurrences. Land had been living with her daughter Mia's father for roughly the first six months of Mia's life. (My child and I) watched the first two episodes in my bed on my laptop, kind of cuddled up together. NY 10036. The Three Car Crashes That Changed My Life, "I lived on $6 a day with a 6-year-old and a baby on the way. [4] While we see Alex in the show constantly putting on a brave face to her many clients and acquaintances, we don't see much of the reality, which is a lot of time completely alone. This helped her and her daughter save up, get their car fixed, and move to Missoula, Montana for good. She would eventually ask her husband to move out permanently and a divorce would soon follow. According to one study, caseloads across all safety net programs rose to over 300 million recipients throughout this period however, Land and those like her were unfairly discriminated against in their daily lives, all the while still not getting enough assistance to live sufficiently. Photo by Erika Peterman", "Who Is Stephanie Land and Where Is the 'Maid' Author Now? I also started to get really angry. ", Baseball legend Jackie Robinson's name misspelled as "Jakie" on road sign, Serena Williams honored at NAACP Image Awards, City, family reach $2 million settlement in Florida fatal police shooting, How these 3 hashtags from Black Twitter changed America. ", "I Spent 2 Years Cleaning Houses. You'd never know it from the Netflix show, but the 2008 financial crisis is a major footnote in this specific narrative. Thats hardly the whole story, however. Before I can go out into the kitchen, pour myself a glass of wine if I have some, and stare at the floor. 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. 02:07 - Source: CNN. Netflix's newest acclaimeddrama,Maid, (opens in new tab)tells the story of a single mother's resilience and recovery from domestic abuse. In Alexs world, she isnt harassed every time she uses her EBT card (electronic benefit transfer card for SNAP/food stamps) at the grocery store; she isnt told, youre welcome by her closest friends when she confides in them about government assistant programs. The agency only permitted her to work up to six hours a day, reasoning that due to the exhausting nature of the work, she could risk injuring herself. Lands memoir recounts her time living in Port Townsend, Washington a small town with a population of fewer than 10,000 people and working in the states Skagit Valley region. The answer isnt quite cut and dry. "I did in a couple," Land says of snooping in medicine cabinets. Tell me about the experience of watching your story come to life? Stephanie's ex-partner, Daniel, married Kelly Marie Lancien on June 9, 2018, after dating for more than 8 years. Patterns of abuse can form quickly, sometimes in a matter of weeks but it seems like the series implies that Alex and Sean have been together for quite a while. Even though Land had people cheering her on, poverty is isolating. Still smiling. Stephanie then became Mrs. Grisham in 2004, after she and Todd Grisham tied the knot. I advocated for the charges to be dropped to a misdemeanor like it was my new, full-time job. Then I Hired a Maid. However, she had dreamed of becoming a writer since she was 10 and knew she wouldn't be a happy mom if she gave up that dream. 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. On the show, Alex is said to live in Port Hampstead, and cleans houses on Fisher Island, both located in Washington; filming for the series took place on Canadas Vancouver Island. They had only known each other for four months. The author is also working on her second book. Prior to the publication of her memoir in 2019, Land had $50,000 in student loans to pay off and she was renting a home from her ex-mother-in-law. CBS News spoke with Land about how she wrote "Maid," the feelings of watching your life's story become a television show, and what people don't understand about welfare. She didn't want the series to stick too closely to the book since the memoir is tightly focused on her and two of the years that she worked as a house cleaner.Her tenth meeting was with actress Margot Robbie (representing her production company, Lucky Chap) and TV writer/director John Wells (Shameless, The West Wing, ER). I lie there, waiting for her body to start twitching, waiting for that final sigh, before I can slowly slide my arm out from under her. In the series, Alex (Margaret Qualley) lives in the similar-looking fictional town of Port Hampstead. US residents can opt out of "sales" of personal data. All the dance numbers! 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. One contained the ashes of his wife and the other their eldest son. It is a picture of the soul-robbing grind through poverty that millions live with every day. I am not an angry person, I try to avoid it as much as possible, but the more I spoke in public speaking events, not only the book tour audiences but the public speaking audiences, they were mainly White people who maybe had house cleaners of their own. [31], Land has spoken openly about the stigma of receiving government assistance and the assumptions people had of her, when she was relying on food stamps. filming for the series took place on Canadas Vancouver Island. CBS News/Stephanie Land, Netflix Before her memoir "Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive" was even an idea, Stephanie Land was a single mother who had escaped an abusive. She then moved to Missoula and started to attend the University of Montana.When Land first started at the University of Montana, she figured she'd go for a sociology degree so she could graduate and have job stability. But Poverty Never Left Me", Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America, "The Brutal Economy of Cleaning Other People's Messes, for $9 an Hour", "Maid's Tell-All Reveals Dirty Secrets of America's Middle Class". It was an unplanned pregnancy and she wasn't married to the baby's father. There was no welfare, not in the sense they thought of it as. When the couple met and married he worked at KOLD, they divorced in 2006. Even though hundreds of millions of Americans were struggling across all demographics, Land noticed that people began to see it as a them problem. They have. But I dole out lessons in empathy as much as I can, [which is] not only my biggest challenge but my goal in being a parent. I kind of saw that happening leading up to it and it terrified me. Even though her advisor at the local community college told her, What youre trying to do here is pretty much impossible, referring to the course load along with being a single mother who worked full time, she found that being a student helped her case. The series follows Alex, a hardworking mother played by Margaret Qualley, who grapples with leaving an abusive relationship as she struggles to survive in a system that seems destined to fail her. I have a hard time seeing it that way. 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. The Netflix adaptation, "Maid," debuted on October 1, exposing an entirely new audience to a fictionalized version of Land's life. 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