Have you ever wanted to go out with friends but couldn’t because you were sick? Or perhaps, have you ever been so tired, but your alarms kept waking you up? Me too, except I’m not sick, and I don’t have any alarms set. Instead, I have two kids under the age of two years old. So, I rarely get to go out and do the things most people my age do because I’m with my kids all the time when I am not at school or working. And I don’t get any sleep because my daughter is six months old and wakes up screaming for a bottle of milk every two hours as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks. 

On days that I have school, I wake up at 5:00 a.m. and start to get ready. Then, I get my kids ready for the day. I do their hair, change their clothes, and brush my son’s teeth. Next, I feed us all breakfast. If I’m lucky, I finish everything a bit early. I then leave the house at 8:30 a.m., finally kid-free, blasting my music, and having my own mini-concert in my car. The euphoria I feel on these car rides is unexplainable. I get to listen to my own music, not “Baby Shark.” I get to blast my music without having to worry about damaging someone’s ear drums. And it’s a part of the very little time I get to be away from the kids.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids more than anything in this entire universe. I always spend my free time taking them out to a fun play place or enjoying some quality time with them in the house. Not to mention, they are spoiled rotten and get every toy they point at. But, I have to go to school anyway. So I enjoy that kid-free time, after a long morning of getting three people ready, while trying to keep my six-month-old daughter entertained, and gently handling my one-year-old’s temper tantrum over his Elmo stuffed animal not sitting up on its own. 

Once I get home from school, I have about an hour to spend with my kids before I have to clock into work. I work from home, so my kids are with me the whole time. I get off at 11:00 p.m., and my kids are usually asleep by then. This is the only time of day that I can sit down and focus on my homework. I’m usually done at around 1:00 a.m. unless I have to pull an all-nighter. Oh, and don’t forget, my daughter wakes up every 2-3 hours, screaming for that bottle. 

After about three hours of broken sleep, I wake up at 5:00 a.m. and start all over again. 

Needless to say, going to school as a working mother of two is not easy. I miss out on time with friends. I’m always busy whether I am booking an appointment, doing laundry, or running some errands. It never really ends. But, no matter how overwhelmed or busy I get, I have never considered giving up on school. I have a degree to earn, an example to set, and a career to chase.

I earned my associate’s degree in 2021 at a community college in Jersey City and thought that I was done with school. But when I had my son in 2023, I knew that my associate’s degree wouldn’t get me as far as I needed to go. I wanted my son to have the best life possible. So, I enrolled at Rowan University, majoring in journalism. Not even a month in, I found that I was pregnant with my daughter. Still, I couldn’t give up. I went even harder. 

Everyone has their own obstacles that they go through. Mine is having to raise two kids on my own as a single mother while trying to work and go to school. But I won’t sit here and say that my struggle is worse than everyone else’s because that’s just not true. People have to deal with losses, breakups, depression, sadness, mental blocks, or literally anything. What may seem like nothing to you, could mean the world to another.

For comments/questions about this story DM us on Instagram @thewhitatrowan or email opinion@gmail.com