THANK YOU for your comment! I have heard several incredibly positive/sympathetic interviews with Stephanie Land, and could not believe that the interviewers weren’t challenging her about how her life choices made a bad situation far, far worse.

I enjoyed Maid and loved the Netflix series, which helped me empathize with the many ways our country makes life even harder for poor people. But I think Stephanie Land reinforces every bad stereotype about poor people. While I admire her for pursuing her education and giving herself a path out of abject poverty, I find it unthinkable that she had a second child while she was still very poor and unstable (emotionally and financially).

There are so many hardworking people in this country who are making difficult but responsible choices: to complete their education BEFORE starting a family, to use birth control and exercise their reproductive rights so they don’t have children they can’t raise properly, to have only as many children as they can afford (which could mean 0 or 1 child when they’d love a houseful), to have children with a loving and responsible partner (or not at all), to study in a major that will allow them to earn a stable income, to take care of their children rather than abandoning them, and on and on.

In contrast, Stephanie Land seems quite entitled about her “rights” (to be a student, to be a parent) and very lax about her responsibilities (like providing food, clothing, shelter, emotional stability for her children). Her children have suffered as a consequence. And we as taxpayers have to pay for the consequences of her poor choices. Our country is filled young people living in totally unstable homes, many who are repeating the mistakes of their parents. This leads me to wonder: How would Stephanie Land feel if her own daughters were single, broke and pregnant?