Everyone is here at Ferris trying to find the perfect balance between school, social life and work.
Now some of us won’t have to worry about work or others don’t care about a social life because we are introverts or gamers who won’t see the light of day for weeks. Imagine for one minute that you had to throw one more thing into that mix. This is not something that is to be taken lightly either because depending on how you look at it, it could destroy your whole world. A baby.
Now, everyone will have their own opinion on if you’re too young to have a baby. I’ll be honest and say that this was unexpected. But I am pro-life, and my daughter has been the blessing that saved my life and brought balance to a lot of chaos that was there.
There are two key components in being about to find a balance of having a baby and being in college. The first one is having a fantastic partner that will work with you and also have you work with them. I am lucky enough to have my fiancée, Stacey Jacobs. Next is understanding that life isn’t the same anymore.
Having a partner is awesome and honestly the only reason I am able to stay in college to finish my degree. She is in college as well. We both work full time jobs, go to school full time, still have a social life and are able to take care of our baby.
The sad truth of the matter is that we don’t get to see each other a lot of the time. Only for little spurts throughout the day. A nice thing about COVID-19 is that a lot of our classes are online. We are able to be at home and take turns watching our daughter to make sure she won’t get into trouble. Even though she is only 7 months old now, you have to have a constant eye on her.
We do still have a social life and we believe that this is the most important part of our relationship and where most of our understanding comes from as well.
We are both a part of Greek organizations on campus, Lambda Chi Alpha and Alpha Sigma Tau. We have brothers and sisters in these organization that still love to see us and spend time with us. Our rule for each other is that we both get one night a week to do whatever we want with our friends, while the other stays home with our daughter. Most of the time we find a babysitter though and go out together. We are still making memories of our college life together.
When you finally learn that it is not all about the party life and focus on family life is when your maturity starts to grow. This is definitely a take that will happen when you have a child, but it is not all lost.
It is all very possible to find the balance and be able to do it all as a parent in college. You shouldn’t have a reason to think that your life is over. You will always be able to pull through anything life may give you.