The Soft Issue
August 2017
Story from Within
On Being a Student-Mother
Family photo made available by author
By: Zainab Alaaya
The transition to motherhood requires intense prioritising. In
between attending to your crying baby, changing her diaper
in a bid to stop her fussiness, doing your house chores,
you still have to study for an upcoming test. As a student,
raising a child is an extremely challenging feat that tests your
endurance. This is because it can be really exhausting.
However, if you are determined, it does not prevent you from
forging ahead. Parenting as a student requires you to use the
little time you have wisely. I had started taking my baby girl
with me to school since she was three weeks old. It was easy
to attend classes with her then because she was still a baby
and rarely disturbs. She would be napping most of the time.
Things changed few months later. She reached her teething
stage. Attending classes with her became really difficult. I
could not take her to a day-care centre. I felt she was too
young to be exposed to day-care treatment. The ones (day-
care outfits) I saw were especially not encouraging.
I had to start monitoring her naptime. While my baby was
sleeping I would be doing house chores I had abandoned. It
was also around this time I do some studying.
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On some mornings, my baby
would want to sleep and
since I have a class, I have to
wake her up and this leads
to extra fussiness which also
requires extra breastfeeding
to soothe her. This is so that
she does not disturb me
while I am in the classroom.
the
LENS