College students with kids have to keep one eye on the books and the other on their children.
Everyday after daycare, 16-month-old Leila has her mother's undivided attention from 5 p.m. until bedtime.
Balancing act
By Joe Bant, Jayplaywriter
A National Achievement Scholar and former high school honors student, Kayron Kelly sometimes jokes that the only test she's ever failed was her pregnancy test. The Kansas City sophomore was barely into her senior year in high school when she discovered she was pregnant. Her faith and values ruled out abortion, and the connectedness she already felt to the child inside her made adoption equally unlikely.
She'd been looking at distant, "pretty" schools for college on the East Coast, like Florida and Florida State, but with a baby on the way, she shifted her focus to just finding a way to get to any college at all. That resolution carried her to where she is now - a young, single mom pursuing a double major in Spanish and biology who works weekends at restaurants on the side.
Kelly is not the only one. According to teenpregnancy.org, 34 percent of young women become pregnant at least once before they're 20 years old. For those who
Kayron balances a life filled with friends. Leila and a double-major in Biology and Spanish with help from her parents.
decide to keep the child and stay in school, a precarious balancing act ensues. Students try to mold themselves into effective parents while still making progress toward an academic degree. Success often depends on a combination of external support and internal drive. Kelly counts herself lucky enough to have both in abundance. "You just have to look at the bright side," she says, all the while keeping one eye on her 16-month-old, toddling Leila. "I knew I could do it. Someday, she's going to be my best friend."
Part of what let's Kelly do it is the support of her parents. They live just a half hour away on the Kansas side of Kansas City, and Kelly says they're always willing to lend a helping hand by playing the role of babysitter or simple advice giver. Whether she's cramming for finals or just needs time to herself, she knows they're just a phone call away, and that does a lot for her peace of mind, she says.
Experts say this kind of parental or community support is essential to young parents' development, because no matter how willing they are, there's just not enough hours in the day for them to do everything themselves.
"It's not just dependent on them," says Morna Murray, co-director of education and youth development at the Washington D.C.-based Children's Defense Fund. "It's dependent on the amount of support they can get." Murray says the support can come from a variety of sources — parents, a spouse, community organizations to name a few—but it needs to come from somewhere. Society needs to realize that college-aged parents aren't a "one-size
fits all" population. They're different people each in a
unique situation, and often they have vastly different needs.
Take for example 29-year-old Melanie Hull, already the mother of four young boys and the foster parent of a 35-year-old mentally handicapped man. Hull had her oldest son when she was 18 and her youngest just two years ago. A second-year student in accounting, this is the second time she's tried to come back to school to earn her degree. The first was cut short when her third child developed heart problems.
"Neither of my parents graduated high school," she says. "I want to be a good role model. If I can do this with four kids, anyone can do it."
Hull's typical day begins by taking her kids to school and daycare, and her foster son to work. Then she takes care of her classes and any errands afterward. In
Hull credits University of Kansas grants
between classes and errands, she hits the books. She finishes by picking the kids up, and she spends the evenings entirely with them and her husband. "Our family is everything," she says. "If I'm not in school, I'm with them."
Angelic-looking Lela can be a handful, with her fake crying and other attention-getting techniques.
with allowing her to pursue an education. Along with Kelly, she also uses the University-affiliated daycare at Hilltop Child Development Center, located on campus near the Burge Union.
Pat Pisani, is executive director of Hilltop. She knows about being a parent in college, because she had two kids of her own when she was pursuing a graduate
degree at the University during the 1970s. Pisani says Hilltop was a large help to her then, and today the center still makes helping students its top priority.
"There's going to be times when you feel like you're not devoting as much to school as you should, and there's going to be times when you feel like you're not devoting as much to your child as you should," Pisani says. Sometimes something's got to give."
This is a mantra Kelly and Hull can relate to. Both
spoke of the guilt they often feel about not being with their children every second of the day. For Kelly, who aims for medical school after her undergraduate degrees are finished, comfort comes by thinking of a better life for her Leila." "think about how proud she'll be of me when I'm done."