Balancing books and a baby

“I had (Jude) in 2014, last year in September,” Lau said. “In the beginning of my pregnancy, no one knew. Then I came back last fall and it was like ‘Woah, she was pregnant?’”

Sitting outside on a picnic bench back in mid-October, Lau watches her 14-month-old son toddle around the grass outside of Kewadin Village. She abruptly pauses her story as Jude shoves a part of a dandelion in his mouth.

Related Stories

“This is life,” she said, picking bits of grass off his outstretched tongue.

The 26-year old junior has lived at the complex since coming back to school last year. She moved in a week before Jude was born.

Prior to that, Lau was homeless for several months. Never once did being a single mother discourage her from pursuing a degree in sociology with a concentration in youth studies.

While Lau enjoys learning at CMU, she said she sometimes feels ostracized by the university and students. For the first seven weeks of Jude’s life, she brought him to school because she could not afford daycare.

Lau recalled a room on the lower levels of Anspach Hall where she had some privacy to breastfeed Jude, called the Quality of Life Room.

“There was a nursing room but it was there because a faculty requested for it because she had to breastfeed. Then, (the university) ended up moving the room and they took over the stuff in the room for a guy who had an office next door,” Lau said. “The breastfeeding room was moved to this really uncomfortable space. They took the couch. They just put a chair in a room.”

Lau said the room she was moved to featured a somewhat see-through door where students could see her breastfeeding her son when they walked by. 

In June 2014, the on-campus student housing fixture, Washington Square Apartments was torn down to build the $95.2 million Biosciences Building. Displaced students, primarily international and non-traditional students, were relocated to the outskirts of campus.

This hurts students like Lau, who does not have a car and now finds it more difficult to navigate campus.

“I really like this community. It’s just a shame that it’s not really taken care of,” Lau said. “A lot of international students live (on the outskirts of campus) now. There’s Northwest (Apartments) and Kewadin (Village). We’re kind of on the outskirts of campus so we’re pushed to the outsides, like we don’t matter.”

BACK TO SCHOOL

Professor of Human Development and Family Studies Jeff Angera said in one class he teaches roughly 50 students, two to three are parents. But this kind of information isn't likely to come up in conversation unless Brought up by the student.

Junior Michele Denman, 36, said unless the topic is brought up, the fact she has a child is irrelevant to her life at CMU.

Most mornings start off waking up at 6 a.m. to help get her 12-year-old daughter Emma off to middle school, leaving the house by 7:15 a.m. at the latest. While Denman drives an hour to and from school, she returns home in Holt, located 15 minutes south of Lansing, to sit down with her daughter so they can do homework together.

Although her daughter initially thought Denman going back to school was “weird” and “uncool,” she has become more supportive of her mother's quest to earn her Pre-Physical Therapy degree.

“As (Emma) got older, she started to understand that it’s a pretty awesome thing that mom wanted to go back to college and become whatever it is that I want to become."

—Junior Michele Denman

While Denman said the task of balancing the life of a student and a mother is “stressful,” she feels like any other student at CMU.

“I think (the university) treats me like they would treat any other student who didn’t have a child at home and didn’t commute,” she said. “I feel like anybody else (at the university). I haven’t been treated any differently because nobody really knows that I have a child.”

After nearly six months of deliberation, Denman came back to CMU in 2013 when she decided quit her job as a dermatologist’s assistant. For her, taking online courses was never an option due to the requirements set by her degree. 

Lau faced the same predicament.

“Online courses weren’t going to get me the degree I needed,” Denman said. “When I initially started, I took a course so early in the morning and I commuted an hour, (the university) had no sympathy for me.”

For many however, Angera said, online courses are the only option. Even then, they come at a cost.

“I think the online environment creates more flexibility, but it is complex. Those people still have all the demands (of a parent and student),” he said. “Sometimes what people try to do in an online environment is think, ‘Well I can work, and I’m a parent, and I can take classes.’ They don’t allocate enough time for their classes and they don’t do as well.”

He described the role of a parent as “prominent” in a student’s life and sometimes work or a job may fall to the wayside when a parent's child becomes sick.

“If a job doesn’t work out for you and it conflicts your schedule, you maybe try to find another job,” he said. “When you’re a parent, you don’t do that. It adds a level of complexity many students may not encounter.”

ON-CAMPUS SERVICES

Whether students need accommodations for learning or time off because of external issues, like extended sick leave or a death in the family, the Office of Student Affairs seeks to aid those on campus.

“If you’re working, as many of our students are, and trying to juggle classwork and be a parent, that’s going to be tough,” said Associate Vice President for the Office of Student Affairs Tony Voisin.

He said the best advice for those managing being a student and a parent is to focus on time management.

“Try to be as organized as you can and delegate your time,” he said. “I would encourage them to take advantages of services that we have (around campus) like advising, tutoring, the different academic support labs and student success centers.”

For students with children, this poses a problem. Voisin said online courses for many majors are not available because the course material cannot be taught through technology, such as music courses or classes with a lab.

Without the benefit of an on-campus daycare, attending on-campus classes becomes tougher. 

“We don’t have a traditional daycare on campus,” Voisin said. “Other than the (Child Development and Learning) Lab, I know (daycare) is something that’s been talked about and looked at over the years. There are a number of daycare solutions in town, but the university has never gotten into the business of a university daycare.”

Margaret Desormes, lab director for the Child Development and Learning Lab, said the lab serves as a pre-school for children ages three and four. It does not serve as a daycare. The lab is open 8:45 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. Monday through Thursday and gives students pursuing degrees in early childhood development a chance to gain real time experience.

"Our mission is to serve students who are going into teaching," Desormes said. "Two-thirds of our children (enrolled) here are from the local Head Start. We take in the other one-third who enroll from the community on a first come, first serve basis."

Early Head Start Family Center is a local child care center for families at poverty level income. Children enrolled in the program recieve free tuition for the Child Deveopment and Learning Lab. Those who do not qualify pay a one-time yearly tuition rate of $2,700.

Currently, Desormes said there are eight teachers on staff with either a bachelor or master degree

Voisin cited costs and student necessity as reasons why there are no plans for a daycare.

“It has been discussed. The university has never really pursued that (idea),” he said. “There certainly are costs to be considered. It’s not a cheap program. You have to have staff, you have to have a location and there are a lot of things that go into play when you open a daycare.”

WOULDN’T TRADE IT FOR THE WORLD

When asked if it would be easier to go through school without Jude, Lau answered before the question was even finished.

“He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me," she said. "I wouldn’t trade him for the world. I think I would go back to earlier on in life and do things differently, but we don’t live where we can control things like that."

"For me, I wouldn’t do anything different. I’m where I am for a reason. This is who I am."

— Sarah Lau

---

Lau plans on graduating a year from now and applying to grad school at CMU. Much of her future however remains “up in the air” due to monetary factors. She receives no financial help from her family or Jude's father.

“I have a lot of adversity so I’m able to see things from a different point of view than a lot of people who are privileged,” she said. “I’m someone who holds school so near and dear to my heart because that’s a big part of who I am and who I identify as — a student and an intellectual. I would like to be a professor or someone who can mentor people and help people.”

The hardest part of balancing school and being a parent is the lack of support offered through the school, Lau said. She believes daycare services have to be implemented if the campus wishes to stay all inclusive.

“A lot of university offers childcare [sic]. It would be an opportunity for a lot of the early childhood development students to work with kids,” she said. “That only makes sense because then I would be able to focus on my studies more, doing better, which would look better on the school.”

Jude crawls into his mother's lap. He repeatedly gurgles "cah" as cars pass by the complex. 

Lau doesn’t speak for a very long time, pensively kissing the top of Jude’s head as he pulls the Velcro straps of his shoes. Only a constant ripping noise echoes in the courtyard where they sit.

“There’s conflict within the roles of being a woman and a mother and trying to do work outside of that,” she said, finally breaking the silence. “It’s pretty challenging, especially because I work on top of that. It’s all very demanding.”

Photo Gallery