Bring Back Big Families

I recently had the opportunity to take a group of students to hear author Stephanie Land speak about her book, Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive.

It was quite the experience to hear her speak about how she knew she had a good story to tell but didn’t think anyone would want to hear it.

Well, that sounds awfully familiar, as that is almost exactly why I started this blog. I have a story to tell, but I don’t know that anyone, outside of a few people close to me, actually care enough about my story to read it.

So I began wondering: what makes a story worth reading? What makes someone else’s story worth your time?

It’s a hard question to answer. As Ms. Land relayed her story to the crowd, I couldn’t help but feel that certain people are simply more gifted in storytelling than others. They have a particular way of relaying their own stories that make people want to listen to them. Even if it’s a story about cleaning other people’s houses. (I would highly encourage giving her story a read. It’s quite the story.)

There is no way to know if everything she says happened to her happened exactly like she said it did. I have no reason to not believe her. But what I found most striking about her story was her devotion to providing for her daughter, no matter what it took.

Though she didn’t quite come out and say it directly, her daughter was really the reason she did everything she did, in particular why she endured the invisible life that she did.

(Side note: her daughter’s middle name is Story. She wanted her first name to be Story, but the dad said no. Tell me a woman who names her daughter Story isn’t better at telling her story than others.)

That’s parenthood. We (are supposed to) do what we do every day because we want our children to have better and to do better and to be better than we ever could have imagined. And even if that takes scrubbing someone else’s toilets to accomplish, we do it.

And if you’re a parent who is not willing to give it all up for your kids, to put yourself aside, to scrub someone else’s toilets, either literally or metaphorically, then maybe you need to reevaluate your priorities.