Dear Book Loves,
For this particular post I am reviewing the book, Class: A Memoir Of Motherhood, Hunger, And Higher Education by Stephanie Land. If you ever had a doubt how tough single moms are, this book will stifle that doubt. Ms. Land writes openly and with emotional depth about the challenges of being a single mother and pursuing a degree in writing while parenting her six year old daughter, Emilia.
Not being a mom myself, I still found Ms. Land's writing compelling reading as I prefer memoirs about regular people as opposed to celebrity memoirs. Ms. Land last wrote the memoir titled Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive a couple of years ago. She related in that book how she became pregnant by an abusive boyfriend and decided to keep the child. She has her own cleaning business whereby she cleans houses, businesses, gyms, etc. in order to make a living to support herself and her young daughter. Remember, she tried working under someone else's house cleaning business, but then she decided she could control her schedule and make more money by having her own business located I believe in Seattle, Washington. In the first book we see the author making the decision to pursue higher education in Montana and she and her daughter move to Missoula, Montana.
With the memoir titled Class: A Memoir Of Motherhood, Hunger, And Higher Education, Ms. Land continues her story. She and her daughter rent a portion of an older home, Ms. Land continues her cleaning business, and she is also adding the pursuit of a four year degree to the mix. Single motherhood finds her working tirelessly to juggle the pursuits of being a mom, a business owner, and a student. We see her juggling five classes during her senior year of college. Additionally, she is attempting to get an increase in child support from her daughter's father. We see the rigors of dealing with a court system and a judge who value a father's earnings from his full-time job with overtime pay over her job cleaning houses, raising a daughter, and meeting the demands of collegiate reading, essays, reviews, and thesis papers. Finding affordable child care is a major issue described in this book in that the costs are exorbitant even with having your own business, receiving child support, and utilizing food stamps.
When Ms. Land's daughter turns six years of age, Ms. Land loses food stamp benefits for herself, but retains them for her daughter Emilia. Many times the reader sees where food stamps barely cover the cost for grocery staples much less fresh fruit and vegetables. Going for ice cream and getting a happy meal for your child are extravagances Ms. Land lives for and she will often go without food herself so that her daughter can eat what she likes. At times this book is so raw and vivid that I found myself shocked and bewildered by all that Ms. Land tackles on a daily basis. At one point she writes that her life motto is "My life may be relentless". She is constantly chasing collegiate deadlines, a way to get her daughter to school in a timely fashion, cleaning homes, and hoping that her car starts each morning.
And then there is health care. When Ms. Land finds herself with a puncture wound in her leg during this book, she tries to treat it herself knowing that visiting a hospital ER is not a reality she can readily afford. She does go to the college's student health center where she receives help cleaning the wound, Neosporin is applied to the wound, and she is sent home with a load of bandages. Her instructions from the student health center are that if it gets worse head directly to the ER. Though Ms. Land recovers without a trip to the ER, I find myself wondering what does it say about our country when a single mom with a puncture wound in her leg who works hard for a living and is trying to improve her life status via education, can only afford to be seen at a student health center as opposed to an actual ER? There are a lot of moments like this in the book where I am shocked at the lack of assistance for this hardworking mother of a single child.
Also, child care is a major hurdle for Ms. Land. Many times a friend or roommate will watch Emilia after she gets home from school each day. In order for Emilia to attend day camp during the summer, Ms. Land barters with the day camp's owners by cleaning their facility in exchange for a discount on the cost of sending Emilia to camp daily. And sometimes Ms. Land has to depend on the generous mindset of her professors who allow her to bring Emilia to class with her. Why could the college not have offered a child care center for students who are also parents. And why could it not be staffed by students pursuing a degree in early, middle, or high school education? Even better, what about a sliding pay scale for students like Ms. Land who are doing their best to raise a child, obtain a degree, and additionally run her own business? It leaves you seeing where the gaps are in education, the family court system, and food stamp benefits. Honestly, we have hospitals that offer child care for their staff so obviously, where there is a will there should be a way. Are these benefits only for the wealthy members of our society?
There is a big revelation and/or event in this book that I will not give away here. In the final chapters of the book we see Ms. Land finishing her four year degree along with having $50,000 in student loans that she will have to start repaying six months after graduation unless she continues in a collegiate MFA program at another university. Her first jobs are as a data entry clerk and she also obtains a paid YWCA internship. She does not explicitly say it, but I am sure she is still running her home cleaning business just to make ends meet. Here's what I hope: Ms. Land secures a spot in a phenomenal graduate school, she maintains a tenacious yet loving spirit, and she continues to show readers and the world the stamina it takes to be a single mother making a life for herself though the systems that rule her life are lacking in so many fundamental ways.
Till my next read,
Grace (Amy)
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