Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. As of 2023, there are roughly 9.3 million Americans who benefit from housing assistance programs. What housing assistance programs are available in your region? What programs are funded federally? Generally, how do housing assistance programs aim to provide help, and what are common criticisms of these programs?

Teaching Suggestion: The bureaucracy involved with procuring Section 8 housing and other similar government aid impacts individuals in the program, as described in The Atlantic article provided in the resources below. As such, understanding the requirements to secure housing will help students better connect with the theme of The Psychological Costs of Poverty. Because students may have personal experiences with government aid programs, poverty, and other sensitive content in the text, it may be beneficial to review your group’s guidelines for maintaining respectful and compassionate discussion throughout the unit.

• The US Department of Housing and Urban Development offers general information about the federally funded Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section 8).
• This resource from the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles is a concise, 3-minute video overview describing how Section 8 works on a local level, including steps involved and who qualifies.
• The Atlantic’s “How Housing Policy is Failing America’s Poor” describes how, though Section 8 was designed to help individuals overcome poverty, it ends up trapping them instead.

Differentiation Suggestion: Housing assistance programs like Section 8 make use of income data to determine eligibility. For students who would benefit from a visualization of the statistics regarding poverty, it might be helpful to have them review some of the many infographics presented on the United States Census Bureau’s “Poverty Visualizations” page. These graphics offer charts, images, and visuals of statistics and figures regarding poverty. Given the themes and topics covered in Maid, you may want to focus on the infographics “Measuring the Nation’s Social and Economic Well-Being” and “Poverty in the United States: 2022.”

2. As reported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), rates of violence between romantic partners were highest in communities where incomes are in the lowest income bracket. Generally,, what factors might contribute to this connection between domestic or intimate partner abuse and poverty?

Teaching Suggestion: This prompt offers an opportunity to introduce The Linked Traumas of Poverty and Abuse, a theme that is explored throughout Maid. As these articles demonstrate, a clear connection between domestic/intimate partner violence and poverty exists, though there is no one single cause for the correlation. Generally speaking, women in poverty have less agency, financially and otherwise, and therefore are subject to their abuser’s patterns of power and abuse.

• The Borgen Project’s “Domestic Violence and Poverty: A Nuanced Relationship” discusses the relationship between domestic violence and poverty.
• Relatedly, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence’s “Facts about Domestic Violence and Economic Abuse” compiles vital statistics regarding this form of control and abuse.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the text.

There are certain moments in our life when we might feel invisible—we feel ignored, unimportant. Reflect on one such instance in your own or someone else’s life. What were the circumstances? What were the effects? Comparatively, what are the benefits of being “seen”?

Teaching Suggestion: The author describes throughout Maid of the difficulty with being “unseen” by her clients as she cleans their houses. Many might relate to this notion of feeling invisible; foregrounding those experiences in this prompt will help students form a deeper connection to the author’s conflicts and the narrative’s theme of The Psychological Costs of Poverty.

• Psychology Today’s “The Need to Feel Seen” explains that the need to “be seen” is a basic human desire.
• Psych Central’s “How to Be Seen and Heard When You’re Feeling invisible” provides suggestions on how to overcome feelings of invisibility.