If you’re a student, you probably understand all too well how stressful university can be. Every student has, at one point or another, had stressful moments where they had to hole up in the study hall and finish multiple papers.
Picture a moment like this in your life. Now, imagine that you’re completely responsible for the health and well-being of a child. This is what mothers like Jessica Christmas go through every day – balancing parenthood and education.
“I’m a full-time student and a full-time mom, but Dalen always has to come first no matter what,” said Christmas.
She is in her graduating year at St. Thomas University, majoring in journalism. She became pregnant with her son, Dalen, when she was in her third year. This completely changed her experience as a student, and she was soon faced with the decision of taking her grad year off. In the end, Christmas chose to do so to focus on her child.
“I remember being scared, overwhelmed and excited. I felt that I wasn’t ready to be a mother. I never planned on ever becoming a mother but that all changed once I gave birth to Dalen. It’s like motherhood came naturally for me.”
Living at home, her family offered her a lot of support. When her year off was over, however, Christmas had to return to Fredericton, and everything changed. She has no family in Fredericton, and is no longer with Dalen’s father. Because she’s a single parent, it adds more stress to balancing those two parts of her life.
Christmas said she has a reliable babysitter she can take Dalen to when she has classes, but this isn’t always possible. She often takes Dalen with her when she goes to class. At this point she’s gotten used to it, but she had trouble handling it when classes first started. It took her a while to learn how to deal with him being loud in class.
“The first time, we only stayed in class for 10 minutes and then I got overwhelmed,” said Christmas. “I felt embarrassed, not because of him, but the fact that it felt like everybody knew my business. I went home and I started crying and I called my mom.”
Christmas is at least thankful that Dalen is typically well-behaved. Lately, with a broken computer, she’s been forced to bring Dalen to the library with her to write papers, which can make the process time consuming.
Sometimes, there’s no helping it and she has to miss class to care for her son.
“I feel guilty because I’m not the type of person to miss classes every other day,” said Christmas. “But now that my son is my priority, I just have to learn to accept things for what they are without feeling the guilt. As long as my son is healthy, I’m happy.”
Christmas owes a lot of her success in her studies to supportive professors. The majority of those she’s dealt with have been nothing but helpful when it comes to working around her son and figuring out ways to make things easier for her.
Philip Lee, the head of the Journalism department at St. Thomas, is one of Christmas’s professors this year and she says he’s been extremely supportive. Lee says he remembers what it was like being a parent in grad school, and recognizes the need to put Dalen first.
“If she’s having trouble with babysitting or arranging to have childcare during class time, and she lets me know, then we work around that,” said Lee. “Because that’s just got to be the priority. She’s got to be a mother first, student second.”
Lee said he acknowledges that students go through all kinds of different struggles, not just parents. No matter what, he does his best to make sure students are able to be comfortable pursuing their education.
“Some students have financial constraints that mean that they have to work more than other students, so we have to keep that in mind too. The goal is for all students to be successful and to get what they need from their education at STU and we’re here to try to make that work for them.”
Christmas thinks the possibility of an on-campus daycare run by the social work program would be beneficial for many people on campus. It would be easy for mothers to drop their children off on campus while they have class and pick them up when they’re done.
“It would also be very beneficial for the students who are doing social work,” said Christmas. “They would have their placements here on campus, and gain that full on experience by working with the children. So it would be a win-win situation for both students, parents and single parents.”
There are a lot of sacrifices Christmas has made for the sake of her child. Despite the sacrifices, she says her experience has been more rewarding than anything else.
“In the end, everything is worth it. The first three years of school, I was doing it for my future. Now, my final year here at STU, I’m doing it for me and my son’s future so it really does all pay off.”
