The American TV mini-series MAID is mostly about abusive and emotionally complex relationships, and it focuses mainly on the difficulties of the main character – Alex, a young mother who is the victim of several emotionally complex and abusive relationships. However, as part of an antinatalist review of films and television shows, my focus in this text will not be on Alex, but on her daughter Maddy. In a way, I will try to tell the story of MAID from Maddy’s point of view.
Therefore, given that the following text reveals the plot, if you have not watched the show and are planning to do so, please read it after watching it.
24 Hours
The show opens with Maddy being woken up in the middle of the night by her mother, and carried to the car while telling her mother in a plaintive voice “mommy I am sleeping”. They drive for a while and stop somewhere to sleep in the car. At dawn, a police officer wakes them up by knocking on the car window and telling them they can’t park there. So in the morning of that rough night, they go to the social services office where Maddy has to wait in a long line for her mother to find some kind of housing solution for the two of them. It is explained to Alex that she needs a formal job in order to be able to apply for subsidized housing, and she is offered to start right away as a maid. Since Alex cannot take her daughter with her, Maddy is being placed with her grandmother Paula, a woman suffering from bipolar disorder, and her partner in his RV.
When Alex returns from her first day as a maid, she discovers that Maddy is not at the RV because her mother felt too tired to take care of her granddaughter, so she called Maddy’s father Sean to pick her up. At this point, Paula, like the viewers, is unaware of the circumstances that led her daughter and granddaughter to come stay with her.
With no choice, Alex returns home. Maddy is asleep and Sean tells Alex that they agreed that Paula would no longer watch Maddy because she is not really capable of it. He tells Alex that when he came to pick up Maddy, she: “was alone when I got there. Playing with a vape and watching CAGEMATCH on TV”. Sean tries to understand why Alex took Maddy and left in the middle of the night. At this point we discover that Alex ran away from Sean’s house because he was emotionally abusing her. The evening of the night Alex decided to run away, Sean had another of his rage episodes. During which he threw a glass over Alex’s head that broke very close to Maddy. Alex had to remove pieces of glass from Maddy’s hair, and then she felt that this was it, enough is enough.
After their brief confrontation, Maddy was woken up again and carried to the car by her mother. At this point, Maddy was involved in a car accident, which I’ll elaborate about later. For now, it is important to know that Maddy was not physically injured and that this accident made them homeless because the plan was to sleep another night in the car since Alex had nowhere to take Maddy. The police at the scene of the accident offered them a ride home, but because Alex did not want to tell them that she and her daughter, who was not yet three years old, were homeless, she had to call someone to pick them up. Her only option was Maddy’s grandfather, Hank, who hardly sees her for reasons that will be revealed later in the show. By the time Hank arrived, Maddy and Alex were waiting for him on the highway at night. Alex asked her father to drop them off at the ferry station, where they would spend the night on the floor.
All this is just the first chapter, and only 24 hours in Maddy’s life. During which Maddy witnessed her mother being assaulted by her father, had pieces of glass pulled out of her hair, was woken up in the middle of the night by her mother, slept in a car, was looked after by her bipolar grandmother (apparently sitting there alone, playing with a vape while watching a violent show on TV), returned to her father and the place that had been her home until now, was taken away again, was involved in a car accident, saw her grandfather after a very long time, spent the night on the floor of a ferry terminal. All of this in one day.
No Better Days Ahead
In the second episode, after Alex has failed to get help from social services, she decides to go to a domestic violence shelter. Maddy is unhappy with the situation. She cries and tells her mother, “No! I want to go home”. She lies on the bed in the room they were given and cries. The frequent moves from place to place, as well as the tension on her mother’s face, despite her admirable efforts not to reveal her emotional state to her daughter, take their toll and Maddy suffers.
Meanwhile, Sean has filed for full custody of Maddy. Given Alex’s situation (especially being homeless), the court has decided to give her time to get organized, and in the meantime Maddy will return to her father. Maddy is forced to move again, this time without her mother.
Alex, determined to get her daughter back, is forced to accept an offer of subsidized housing despite telling her mother about it when they were checking out the place that she couldn’t bring Maddy into a building with ex-cons. They move in anyway, and ex-cons seem to be the least of Maddy’s problems, as the apartment is filled with black mold that makes Maddy very sick.
Alex can’t take care of Maddy because she’s been threatened with being fired if she’s late for work. So, despite her resistance and tears, Maddy is moved to daycare.
Later that day, Maddy runs a fever. Alex can’t be reached, so the daycare calls Sean, who can’t pick her up because he’s at work, so he tells the daycare to call Hank, Maddy’s grandfather, to pick her up. Maddy moves to another house.
Alex takes Maddy to the doctor, who discovers that she has infection in both her ears. Hank suggests that Maddy and Alex stay with him at least until Maddy recovers, but after experiencing a flashback to her childhood, Alex remembers that her father abused her mother. She realizes that her trip to Alaska with her mother when she was a little girl was actually escaping her father. She confronts him about it and then picks Maddy up from the rug where she was playing and takes her to the car. Hank follows them and asks what happened, and Alex, with Maddy in her arms, screams at her father that as a child she used to hide in the kitchen cabin whenever he yelled and hit her mother. This is not judgmental of Alex, it is completely understandable that she couldn’t think logically at that moment and put Maddy in the car first, close the windows, and only then confront her father. I’m not judging Alex after everything she’s been through, I’m judging the situation that Maddy is forced to go through, which is absolutely terrible. She is forced to see her mother burst with anger, listen to her mother screaming at her grandfather that they left him because he used to beat her grandmother. Even though Maddy is very young (she’s three), it’s highly unlikely not to leave some marks.
In the car, Maddy asks her mother where they are going. Alex has no answers for her because they have no place to stay. Maddy asks when they will be going home. Alex stays silent. And Maddy says I wanna go home.
They don’t go home. Instead they are going to Paula’s RV.
But that doesn’t last long, as it turns out that Paula’s husband is a con and a compulsive gambler. He somehow convinced Paula that she was untrustworthy with money, and therefore he should have full access to all of her possessions, including bank accounts, documents, and a house she owns. A house he lost because he didn’t pay the mortgage, because he spent all the rent money the tenants paid on gambling.
Alex is told about a great daycare for Maddy by a former acquaintance of hers called Nate. The problem is that Alex has to prove that she is a resident of the area where the daycare is located. So she tries her best to find a place to rent there. After many landlords refuse to accept her housing assistance vouchers (TBRA), she manages to find a place with two very nice women. Finally, Maddy has a nice place to stay and a good daycare. But that too is very brief since after Maddy’s birthday party at that house, Sean breaks into the landlords’ house, completely drunk, looking for Alex. The women decide that Maddy and Alex cannot stay. Maddy is homeless again.
Nate, who has a romantic interest in Alex, suggests that they move in with him so they can stay at Maddy’s daycare. Another temporary home for Maddy. And again, this home is also very temporary, as shortly after Alex moves in with Nate, Sean arrives to tell her that her mother is about to lose her house. The three of them go to find Paula’s husband and confront him. When Paula discovers that her husband stole and gambled with her money, which is what caused her to lose her house, she has a nervous breakdown during which she hurts herself and is hospitalized. Alex spends the night in her old house, sleeping with Sean. This is while Nate takes care of Maddy and waits up all night for her. When he finds out where Alex has been, he is very frustrated and asks her to leave.
So Maddy has lost another house, and a daycare, and she and her mother move back in with Sean.
That is until one night he comes home with a six-pack of beer, and is furious about losing his job. He takes it out on Alex, and throws something at her again. So she decides to leave again. She can’t find Maddy until she realizes that Maddy is hiding in the kitchen cabin like she did when she was little. They don’t have a car because the car they used was Nate’s and Sean gave it back to him. So they walk to a gas station where Alex calls Regina, a woman whose house she cleaned and they became friends with, to come and take her back to the domestic violence shelter.
Alex files for full custody of Maddy. Sean rejects the request and demands and is granted 4-hour visitation with Maddy. During his first visit, Sean asks Maddy to get off the swing and she has a tantrum. He loses his temper and yells at her and she has a minor meltdown. He then realizes that his alcoholism and rage problem could endanger Maddy and decides to give full custody to Alex.
This allows Maddy and Alex to move to Missoula, Montana, where Alex has received a college scholarship, in hopes of starting a new life.
Antinatalistic Perspectives
There are three main reasons why I found this TV show interesting, relevant, and important from an antinatalist perspective. First, of course, although the show is about the struggles of a very young mother, it also depicts a terrible time in the life of a very young person – her daughter.
Secondly, I think that in a way, this show can serve as an example of the argument that even very good and devoted parents are in many cases powerless over what happens to their children.
Alex is determined that her daughter’s life will be better than her own – a survivor of an abusive relationship, with a bipolar mother, and an alcoholic father who abused her mother. But Maddy is also the daughter of an alcoholic father who abused her mother, and is the granddaughter of a bipolar woman, and the granddaughter of an alcoholic man who abused her grandmother, and her mother as a result. And just like Alex, Maddy experienced the abuse of her mother by her father at a very, very young age. Like her mother, Maddy was forced to hide in the kitchen cabin.
Despite Alex’s incredible efforts to provide Maddy with the best possible life, she fails to provide her with one of the most important things that children her age need: stability. During some parenting class that Alex is taking (because she was advised it will sound good in court during the custody case), the instructor explains the importance of a sense of stability among children. He says, for example, that children are 55% more likely to experience emotional, psychological, and academic difficulties when their home is falling apart. It seems that at this point Alex realizes how damaging all these changes are to Maddy’s life. But it’s not like the alternative is any better. All of her options are terrible.
Perhaps a more concrete example of the claim that even devoted, present, and caring parents cannot protect their children from all harm is the car accident that I briefly mentioned at the beginning of the text, and I will elaborate on it now.
While they were running away from home for the second time, Maddy’s beloved doll, Shamerial, slipped from her hand and fell out of the car. Alex realized that Maddy was in great distress over the loss of her doll because Shamerial was Maddy’s attachment object, and she wanted to help. So she stopped the car and went to look for the doll, leaving Maddy alone in the car. It was very dark and Shamerial had fallen into an area full of vegetation. Alex did not give up and continued to look for Maddy’s important doll. She managed to find it and seemed to feel a great sense of relief. When she turned back, she heard a huge thud, it was her car being crushed by another car.
This is not a perfect example of course because while Alex’s intentions were good, her performance was bad. She stopped her car on the freeway, which is of course a very irresponsible act on her part. At the same time, this is very uncharacteristic of her, she is usually a very responsible mother. In fact, she goes above and beyond to be a good mother, and she seems to be doing a pretty good job, even without considering her dire situation, and certainly when we do consider that. Despite having terrible role models, she is a very devoted, patient, and caring mother. Despite having been through a year of hell, Alex almost always manages not to fall apart when it comes to Maddy. She somehow manages not to let her frustrations (and she has a lot of them) be directed at Maddy.
Which is exactly what reinforces this point, because even devoted, patient, and caring parents are bound to have irresponsible moments or mistakes. It’s very difficult to stay alert and focused 100% of the time. Alex is pretty good at it, but one mistake and a car hits her car with her daughter sitting in it. Maddy wasn’t injured in the accident, but she could have easily been severely damaged for life by her mother’s brief and rare moment of poor judgment. The thing is, even the most responsible and conscientious parents will make mistakes from time to time, and those mistakes can harm their children for life.
My argument that this TV show is an example of how even when parents do their best, their children can be harmed by many factors beyond their control is based on the fact that Alex is a caring, loving, and responsible mother, especially given her life circumstances. However, this argument has nothing to do with her decision to become a mother in the first place, a decision that is anything but caring, loving, and responsible. And that is the third point.
When Alex told Sean she was pregnant, he was very supportive and gentle. But when she told him she was not going to have an abortion, he freaked out. He threw all of her belongings out of the house into the rain. He screamed at her that she was a ‘fucking whore.’ That she was ruining his bike ride. And that she was ruining his life. He also told her: I will never forgive you. And she says she has been afraid of him every day since. So Alex knew very well where the person she had decided to create was being thrown. She knew that Sean was an alcoholic and has a rage problem.
The argument I mentioned earlier is mainly relevant to people who are confident that they can provide their children with a happy life because they are confident that they have all the necessary means to ensure this, including being caring, loving, and responsible parents. But Alex knew in advance where she was putting her child when she decided to bring her into the world. So in her case the argument is simpler and more blunt – it is morally wrong to create a person when you know in advance how difficult the initial circumstances of that person’s life are likely to be.
The harsh judgment of Alex stems less from a few mistakes she made along the way, like stopping her car on the freeway, or going back to someone like Sean, but about deciding to throw a new person into this mess. She shouldn’t be surprised by most, if not all, of the terrible events she and her daughter encounter. At one point, she even told Sean that she was afraid she would end up like her mother, meaning she was afraid she might develop a very serious mental illness and of course if that happened she wouldn’t be able to provide adequate care for Maddy.
This potential horror scenario was right there and it took a tremendous amount of effort for her not to repeat her mother’s story. On the surface, it seemed like she had managed to save herself and Maddy, and live the life she wanted for herself and her daughter. But Maddy still has and always will have an alcoholic father with a rage problem, and Alex knew that in advance. Maddy still has and always will have a bipolar grandmother, and Alex knew that in advance too. It’s unclear if Maddy will have a grandfather, but if she does, he’s also an alcoholic with a rage problem and a very complicated relationship with Maddy’s mother that will probably never heal, and Alex knew at least most of these things in advance. And Maddy is still the daughter of a woman who struggles day in and day out just to survive, and any problem could push her over the edge.
So even if Maddy somehow managed to come out of all this scarless, she’ll still have to deal with a variety of problems throughout her life. She has a caring, loving, and responsible mother, but in this harsh world, that’s far from enough.
A quick final note. The emphasis in this TV show is on mothers and motherhood. But of course we should also talk about fathers. Sean makes an effort despite his alcoholism to be a good father to Maddy. That was not the case with Alex’s father when she was little, and it is not clear what the relationships are between all the fathers of all the children of all the women in the domestic violence shelter. Maybe some of them made efforts like Sean (who failed in Maddy’s eyes anyway), but it is quite likely that the rest of the fathers failed in the eyes of their children. In any case, it is not about the fathers, it is about the children, it is about the damage and scars they will have to bear for the rest of their lives because their fathers are emotionally or physically abusive, alcoholics, drug addicts, compulsive gamblers, having rage problems, deal with difficult mental conditions or whatever.
We should not judge but rather show empathy for people who are trying to cope with problems. But we shouldn’t empathize and we should judge people who despite coping with issues decide to create new people whom would be dramatically depended on and affected by them.
But this is true for all people, even those who do not deal with specific problems, at least not officially and declaredly, because all people deal with problems, and all people are often impatient, not present enough in their children’s lives, not aware enough of their children’s problems, not attentive enough to their children, lash out at their children, lash out at their partners in front of their children, etc., and all people can find themselves and their children, at any stage of their lives, in difficult situations due to uncontrollable events. The vulnerability is so deep and widespread that a parent does not have to be an alcoholic with a rage problem to hurt their children, all they have to do is be human.