Maid by Stephanie Lane (audiobook)

genre: memoir

Stephanie Lane has a dream of becoming a writer - of leaving the Pacific Northwest, going to college and creating a space for herself on the planet doing what she loves.  What she didn't anticipate was getting pregnant  - and her choice to keep the baby with an unsupportive partner created a tidal wave of consequences that meant Stephanie's dreams had to take a backseat to her very real predicament.  The joy of being a mom won't put food on the table or create a skillset to pay an expensive rent. Experiencing homelessness, scraping by with various grants and programs supplemented by working as a cleaner-for-hire, living in poverty - these experiences are shared as part Stephanie's heart wrenching journey.

I found myself really sympathetic with Stephanie's story. I noticed that I looked differently at those that hold signs near the grocery store or on the median, thinking about how they are individual people with their own individual stories that led them to this point.  I liked how she pulled back the curtain on professional cleaning work, as someone who did multiple long-term cleaning jobs as a teen (both with my family for supplemental income and as my own job) there is a lot to unpack with that look into other people's lives.  The way she navigated government assistance and the struggle to get help - that was interesting too. What I missed was a bit of a conversation about her own privilege.  She did mention once that at least she'd grown up in a suburban home - but it felt almost in passing.  Another hard pill to swallow was that she was trying to get by working on 25 hours a week, I wasn't sure why she chose to do house cleaning and paying for her own gas to drive all over instead of just working at the Target or even fast food.  I'm not judging her choices - I just would've appreciated to know why she felt like working full time wasn't an option - it may have just been that she couldn't find a way to swing child care or something but it left this kernel in my brain of not quite having all the context of what was going on.

Overall, I do think she's telling an important story in well-written way.  I would've appreciated the chronology to be a bit more consistent, just to help me keep things straight, but overall I'm super looking forward to our book club discussion on this one.