Moms balance school and child-rearing
While working toward a degree, some women at USU live a separate life aside from the regular college experience of social bustle.
“I went to the Fieldhouse and it was so funny to see the environment change,” said Chloe Baker, a music therapy major. “It’s so funny to see how girls are different from me because you can tell they are flirty and checking out the boys, and then I go there just to work out because I have a child and husband at home. My mindset and focus is on things completely different than theirs.”
Baker is a 19-year-old mom who married right after she completed her first semester at USU. One and a half months later, she and her husband found out they were expecting their first baby, a boy named Brody.
“I feel like I had to grow up really fast, for sure,” Baker said. “Getting married is one thing, but when you have a kid, it takes your focus away from each other and puts it on the child.”
Baker’s school schedule had to readjust dramatically to conform to the lifestyle of a parent.
“I’m only at school for an hour on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and then I’m here for three hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” she said. “There’s no way I could do it any other way. There’s no way I could be up here all day.”
Although Baker and her husband carry the responsibilities of parenting in their lives, she doesn’t believe in quitting.
“I still want to finish, so I have to take really light semesters,” she said. “I’m just gone in the mornings and my baby sleeps half the time so he doesn’t even know I’m gone, and then I spend the day with him.”
Finding the time to study is Baker’s greatest challenge.
“I have to study and write my papers when he takes naps and my husband and I just have to kind of switch off, like on the weekends he’ll take him for a few hours so I can get stuff done,” she said.
Jill Ochsenbein, a public relations major, agrees managing time is the greatest challenge of running a household and being a mom.
“Best time of day is when everybody goes to bed,” Ochsenbein said. “When my family is doing stuff, I want to do what they are doing, so I stay up late because it’s the best time to concentrate.”
However, not everyone thinks night is the best time to study.
“I try to do most of it during the day so I can make sure the home is taken care of at the end of the day,” said Kayli Nielsen, a family consumer and human development major. She has a baby girl named Rachel.
“The best time is when Rachel is taking a nap, like late morning. When she’s awake, she needs a lot of attention,” Neilson said.
Baker said children need love and attention when they are awake.
“When Brody’s awake, I just try to play with him,” she said. “I never try to like, distract him to where I can do homework; I’m always with him.”
All three women believe there are great benefits for choosing to be a mom while still enrolled in school.
“When I was single, I was always preoccupied with my social life,” Ochsenbein said. “When you’re married, your social life is good. I’m getting way better grades being married than when I was single.”
“You realize that when you’re a mom, B’s and C’s still get degrees,” Nielsen said.
“A lot of people ask me if I regret not finishing school before I started my family, but I don’t because it’s brought me so much happiness,” Baker said. “Sometimes I think, ‘I wonder what it would be like if I didn’t get married so fast and I wonder who I would be hanging out with and what parties I would be going to,’ but that stuff seems so petty and so silly, I guess. Just because when you have a child, you just feel this love that you have never felt before. I definitely love it and it’s really important to me.”
Baker believes starting a family while still in school gives stability and eliminates most drama single students have to deal with.
“I’m really proud of my life,” she said. “It was so unexpected and just so fast, but I just feel really grounded and I just feel like I definitely know where my life is headed.”
– kellice.b@aggiemail.usu.edu