Stefanie Land, author of Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive, wrote a small section of the book that had gotten under my skin. She questioned the value of charitable acts, and it was an offensive suggestion to me. Still, I couldn’t deny how much I enjoyed the book. Land brings an anecdotal light to the daunting challenges of American poverty – the excruciating work, and the obstacles of government help with a culture that looked down her. With further reflection, Land’s opinions became understandable to me, even if I couldn’t agree with her view on charity.* 

Land begins a chapter by describing the faith-based charity work she was part of in her middle-class upbringing. The family had shared Christmas gifts with strangers while sharing the gospel in some way. Land then brings us to her future as a single mom, now receiving similar charities. “Now I’d be opening the door, accepting charity. Accepting that I couldn’t provide for my family. Accepting their small token – a new pair of gloves, a toy – in their impulse to feel good. But there wasn’t any way to put ‘health care’ or ‘child care’ on a list.” 

Land seems to render charity as useless, and that people do it only for a sense of pleasure. I read these words as someone from a family who for years set up events to feed the homeless through church. Every Thanksgiving, my father led a team in making 20 turkeys for the community before coming home to make our own. For myself, I had been part of mission projects in college, having hope that my exchanges about faith would help bring a better world. Such memories made me take offense to Land’s comment. Should we have not done these things? Why bother giving then if it doesn’t solve the world’s problems? What’s the point? Land’s words came across to me as simply bitter, and to imply that my inspirations came from a kind of selfishness felt insulting.

It also seemed like her words had a political message rearing its head. We often read about health care and child care as we doom-scroll through headlines. Politicians also speak of these issues with a righteous proselytizing. If you don’t agree with me, you’re awful and don’t care about people. With these things in the back of my mind, I took Land to be saying the same thing. No one would have to do charity if we just voted the right way, or so I interpreted. My internal radar was set to detect such attacks, and it raised further offense in me. I wasn’t looking for a lecture, but it seemed like I was receiving one.

As I re-read the chapter, I was surprised that I had had no recollection of the rest of the chapter. Land goes on to describe her various struggles in adulthood. She fought for custody of her daughter from a verbally abusive father, and we learn of her hardships in finding affordable housing. The constant stress from her hardships, I could only imagine. And yet, the only thing I had previously remembered from the chapter was the “offensive” intro. Once I became offended, I had stopped paying attention to anything else. I had read the rest of the words, but they were not the focus of my attention.

In my second reading, it also struck me as odd for Land to combine her childhood charity stories with her future stories of hardship. Then it hit me: She once had security, but it was lost in adulthood. This would be a severe loss for anyone in their lives, not to be taken lightly. In her case, the father of her child, who should have been supportive for his new family, instead became a nightmare. Her society also wouldn’t be much help to her getting on her feet, financially and emotionally. Between the court battles and a culture that says to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, Land must have felt continual heartache and abandonment.

With all of this in mind, let’s now picture a middle-class family coming to her impoverished door with a pair of gloves for an offering. Regardless of the family’s intentions, the gift for her was impersonal and impractical. For Land, Christmas toys wouldn’t keep the heat on, and gloves wouldn’t provide day care while trudging to the next awful cleaning job. Even more than this though, the charity came to highlight her inability to provide for her family. It created a bruised ego with guilt and despair not far behind. These are understandable reactions to the offer. Really, who wouldn’t feel bitterness in living her life? I could now see Land’s point of view in an enlightening way, making the feelings of offense drift into dust.

Now this is the part where some would counter my newfound sympathies by highlighting the role Land played in her own story. Yes, she had put herself at the risk of having a child with an unreliable man. It was a precarious position, and one that would steer almost any of us toward financial distress. We can’t escape the reality of our choices, but I resolve that they shouldn’t decide how we think of a person in the present. We shouldn’t dismiss Land’s suffering over an unwise decision from the past. This leads to the arrogance that Land writes of when noting hecklers watching her pay for groceries with food stamps.** Judgements came against her for life as a single mom, and we should see how we can condemn others, in thoughts if not words.

With a renewed empathy for Land, I came to feel sympathy for her while still disagreeing about charity. Families and society should practice charitable giving, no matter the ratio of the gifts to the full needs of recipients. If we stopped thinking of charity as helpful, then the world would be left without the many billions of dollars it receives in the name of good will. Also, it seems we would go backwards in our mindfulness of the poor if we thought of giving as useless. We would think of others even less as we throw up our hands and shrug at the fruitlessness charity offers. It’s a scary notion, perhaps dividing classes even further. And in the end, we can’t predict the fruits that come from charity. Loving relationships can and do develop from the act, and there is genuine help from even the smaller gifts. When a family gives, the practice can become instilled in the minds of our children, and we shouldn’t dismiss these efforts.

As far as the notion that givers are fulfilling an “impulse to feel good”, we shouldn’t think of these feelings in a cynical way. Charitable acts can be both sacrificial and pleasurable. When someone answers a thank you with “It was my pleasure,” it confirms a sense of reward that comes from the act being done. Taking satisfaction from charity doesn’t take away from the moral goodness of doing it. In all cases, there was an expense for the giver, both in terms of money and the time and attention taken to give it. With this, people can be happy and sacrificial at the same time. The pleasure simply comes from the human recognition of goodness and justice being fulfilled, and this isn’t something to criticize.

All of this being said, I find myself now having a peaceful balance of understanding and disagreement with Stephanie Land. Before reading Maid, I had read two books on American poverty by Matthew Desmond. Readers find a world where people choose between basic needs, suffer the psychological stress of bad living conditions, and face obstacles requiring herculean efforts to escape. In Land’s case, she suffered through continual physical pain as a maid while being a ghost in affluent homes, with the health of her car being pivotal to the family’s survival. We should be happy for her escape from that life***, and we can understand her point of view without a disagreement dominating our perceptions. With this, I look forward to reading her sequel.

*This even assumes that I’m interpreting Land’s opinions correctly. I’m taking them from just a couple pages of work, and so flushing out her views with dialogue would be helpful.  

**Land notes the sarcastic words of “You’re Welcome” from the hecklers, saying their taxes paid for her food stamps. I’ve never understood why this should make someone so angry. Tax revenue for poverty programs would, I imagine, only equate to a few cents from a family’s checkbook. Is the heckler really so burdened in life by the shopper needing the food stamps? It seems more likely that the heckler’s anger comes from feelings of righteousness over the shopper. Besides, if the cents go to feeding families in need, then it seems there’s far worse things the government can (and does) use with tax revenue.

 ***Again, it’s a presumption, but I assume someone whose bestselling book led to the creation of a Netflix series has been able to climb out of poverty.