The Daily O’Collegian

At 4:30 a.m., when most people are in deep slumber, she awakens.

She starts the coffee, feeds her pets and starts her day before the first rays of the sun appear in the morning sky.

Kristian Alton, 38, a recent OSU graduate, has three early-morning hours devoted to herself and her schoolwork before her son wakes up at 7:30.

“I was horrified to find out that 4:30 worked best for me to study,” Alton said. “But you’ve got to find time to study.”

After her son, Joshua, 10, wakes up, she feeds him, dresses him and takes him to school by 8:45. All of this happened before she rushed to campus for her classes or work at 9.

As a single parent, Alton knows the pitfalls of balancing school, a job, time with her son and chores around the house.

Like Alton, Tabitha Manners, a single mother with one daughter, Alanna, 9, wakes up around 5:30. A bit later if she is lucky.

“Some days [Alanna] can sleep in until 7:30,” Manners said. “Most days we wake up at 5:30 or 6.

“I wake her up and tell her to get dressed. Then, she goes to my best friend’s house around 7.”

Manners’s best friend watches Alanna until she walks or rides her bike to school. Alanna eats breakfast at school, which her mom says saves time in the morning.

“After I drop Alanna off, I’ll go over to the Colvin and work out before I have to be at work at 8:30,” Manners said.

On the other side of town, Gina Young, 52, a secondary education junior and mother of three boys, makes sure her son, 18, catches the bus.

The school bus comes for her son at 7 a.m., Young said. If he misses the bus, she has to take him to school, which sets off her whole schedule.

“If he misses the bus, I have to be sure he has a quarter for the bus or I take him,” Young said. “He usually only misses on the days I have 9 o’clock classes, so it makes it harder for me.”

Young said she usually gets about five hours of sleep per night and seven if she is lucky. She said her lack of sleep contributed to health problems over the past semesters.

Although her sons are older, Young said she had problems balancing time between school and her sons, 18, 19 and 22. Young says she sacrificed returning to school until her sons were in high school because child care was too expensive.

Despite having children from different age groups, Alton and Young share the ups and downs of being a single parent as well as a student.

Both mothers commuted to school during their first semesters.

“For my first year of school I commuted from Ponca City three to five days a week,” Alton said.

Because commuting was hard with a young son, Alton decided to move to Stillwater and transfer her son to an elementary school near OSU.

Alton said she stayed on campus most days until she had to get her son from school.

“Once I park my car,” Alton said. “It usually stays there all day.”

Young said she had a similar experience when she started school. She said her life was hectic.

“When I started at OSU, I commuted from Tulsa,” Young said. “I rode the BOB bus; I would leave home at 6:30 a.m. and be home at 10 p.m. some nights.

“I never saw my kids and couldn’t spend time with them.”

Just like Alton, Young moved her family to Stillwater, within walking distance to campus.

Although Manners did not commute to Stillwater, she said she changed schools multiple times before earning her first degree in theater arts from OSU in 2005.

Manners said she attended school at South East Missouri, Mid-America Nazarene University and The University of Central Oklahoma before returning to OSU, where she started her degree school in 1998.

She said she moved around a lot but always had time to take care of her daughter.

Through the years, the three mothers devised plans to make their days more bearable.

During the past four years, Alton developed a schedule to help balance her life.

“I have to schedule things,” Alton said. “I have a desk calendar, a day planner; everything is color coordinated.

“Each class has its own color, work, my son; exams are red.”

Young said her packed days during her early years at college brought problems at home.

“One major complaint my sons have is that they never see me,” Young said. “I would have class until 4:30 and then stay on campus using the computer labs until 7 or 8. “My son and I meet on campus now to avoid that problem.”

Young and her son have homework sessions together on campus three times a week. They meet in a computer lab on campus, Young said, and they work on homework before going home to eat dinner.

Young said she likes this setup because she can spend more time with her sons.

Familiar with balancing school and family time, Manners gave birth to her daughter during her second semester of college. She said during her first few semesters as a mother, family members helped care for Alanna.

But, as Manners changed colleges and Alanna got older, the family had to develop a stricter schedule.

“Alanna is now old enough to be a bit independent,” Manners said. “It has become a bit easier.”

Manners said she is thankful for the support she receives from her friends.

“I work with friends who are also parents,” Manners said. “I will watch my best friend’s toddler while she and her husband go on a date because she watches Alanna before and after school.”

Manners is earning a second degree in Russian and goes to class for one hour five days a week.

She is enrolled in one class this semester, which meets during her lunch break from her full-time job as a cataloguer’s assistant at the Edmon Low Library. She said taking only one class per semester allows more time with her daughter.

“Alanna takes dance lessons in Edmond,” Manners said. “To get her to her lessons on time, two days a week, I have to leave work early.

“Alanna has to leave school about 30 minutes early for us to make it to the lessons in time. She was promoted to a new class so she meets more days a week than she did before.”

Despite leaving work and school early, the family makes it to dance and back to Stillwater in time to attend meetings of the Society of Creative Anachronism complete with medieval cooking, costumes and fighting.

“I balance what Alanna needs as a kid with what I need as an adult to be sure she has a good childhood,” Manners said.

But even someone with the strictest, most well-planned schedules run into snags.

“Crap happens,” Alton said. “A flat tire, dead battery, low on gas and there is a line at the station.”

Young and Manners know these snags just as well as Alton.

“No matter what you’re doing, you wish you could be doing something else,” Young said. “Its all about balance—school, mom, work, health issues.”

Young’s son, 18, had pneumonia last school year, she said.

“I had to run home between classes during my two-hour break,” Young said. “I wanted to check on him because he was sick.

“Good luck trying to find a parking spot when I got back; it’s hard to find a spot with a small amount of time.”

Manners said her whole day is off if she forgets to set her alarm.

“I wake Alanna up and explain to her we are running an hour late,” Manners said. “We have to hustle to make up the time we lost sleeping in.

“Sometimes I just let her sleep in until 7:30 instead of waking at 6.”

But life goes on, Alton said. The motto seems to fit many aspects of her life as well as Young’s.

Alton, who started college 19 years ago, has dealt with the ups and downs of life.

After quitting college 14 years earlier, then going through a divorce, Alton decided to start school at OSU in 2002. She entered college with 24 credit hours and five years later, earned two degrees in February, one in psychology and another in human development and family sciences.

The past five years for Alton and her son were an adventure.

Alton said night classes were difficult because she could not always find a baby sitter for her son.

“Some professors would say, ‘Don’t bring your kid to my class,’” Alton said. “Some would work with me and some don’t.

“I’ve been really lucky. I’ve found a lot of friends who will take care of my son for me even though they do not have kids themselves.”

Alton said she had an evening policy law and advocacy class on Tuesdays. She said her professor worked with her schedule and allowed her son to come to class because she could not find an affordable baby sitter.

“Joshua worked on his homework during class,” Alton said. “He’d sit behind me and work on his spelling or draw and write stories; he creates his own comic books.

“During tests he’d sit in the hall. I could see him through a window.”

Manners has also taken her daughter to class.

“Is If Alanna was too ill to go to school but well enough to come to class with me, I’d bring her,” Manners said. “Most of my professors have been flexible in allowing her to come to class with me. But there are some professors I knew to not even ask.”

Not all adventures in single mothers’ lives start with their children.

Young said because of her age, she has been in and out the hospital throughout her college career.

“I actually just got out of the hospital with something pretty serious,” Young said. “My age is starting to catch up with me.”

Schoolwork is not the only aspect of Young’s life that suffers when she is ill.

“I usually work 15-20 hours on weekends,” Young said. “But I have been sick, I was in the hospital, I have to cut back next semester.”

Young said she took 17 hours last semester, which burnt her out. She took 14 this semester and because of health problems, she will probably end up dropping all but six of those hours.

“I’ll probably only take about one class next semester,” Young said. “I just don’t sleep enough; I need to get healthy.”

When Young is ill, her son, 22, has to help take care of his younger brothers.

Alton and Young found support through on-campus organizations.

Alton said two things helped her through her five years at OSU: the support with her employer and the people she met through Nontraditional Student Organization.

“I would have probably quit school if it wasn’t for NTSO,” Alton said. “I got hit in the head with a piece of candy walking through the [Student Union].

“The man who threw it apologized then said, ‘You look like a nontraditional student.’”

The candy thrower introduced Alton to NTSO, and Alton became involved.

Alton joined the group and said the support she received from friends within the group helped keep her from quitting school.

Alton said her boss understood what it was like to be a single mom.

“There were times I couldn’t find a baby sitter or my sitter wouldn’t show,” Alton said. “She let Joshua come to work with me; when they put the TVs in the Union, I thought, ‘Thank you, God!’”

Young said campus organizations have helped her through her jitters as a nontraditional student and a student who often is ill.

“OSU has been really helpful,” Young said. “There are a lot of support systems I use, students with disabilities, NTSO, my advisers and professors.”

Alton said she had to enter each class with the same mentality.

“Basically what I did, when I walked into the class my mind was just in there,” Alton said. “I’ve absolutely enjoyed my time at OSU.”

Alton said not being able to find child care for her son is the only frustrating part of her OSU experience.

“Around 26 percent of OSU’s student body is nontraditional,” Alton said. “Of the 26, 40 percent are single mothers and 30 percent are married with children.

“OSU does not have day care facilities for children older than toddlers and they are one of the only two schools in the Big 12 who do not offer child care.”

Finding child care after 6 p.m. that was within her budget was hard, Alton said.

“Baby sitters want $8 an hour,” Alton said. “I was making minimum wage; it was more than I could afford for an evening baby sitter.”

Manners agrees it is hard to find a baby sitter in Stillwater.

“When Alanna was younger there was no way I could take her to work with me like I can now,” Manners said. “Sometimes I send her to sleep in a corner of my office in the library.

“There have been many nights when I have worked late and brought her with me.”

But, having a parent in college is not always bad for a child.

“I am teaching Alanna to speak Russian as I learn it,” Manners said. “She learned how to write her name in Cyrillic and she is learning some basic phrases.

“She goes to Russian study sessions with me. I also taught her Spanish as I learned it when she was a toddler even though she says she doesn’t remember any of it.”

Despite their rigid schedules, Alton and Manners found time to devote to their children.

Alton said she plays Wii bowling with Joshua.

“He usually beats me in a game of bowling,” Alton said.

At the end of the day, Alton said she and her son lie in the dark, listen to music and honestly and openly reflect upon their days, worries and things that make them happy. They are in bed by 9 so Alton can start her day again at 4:30 a.m.

Manners said she makes sure Alanna has what she considers a good childhood.

“She does Girl Scouts and takes piano lessons,” Manners said. “She goes to Girl Scout camps with scholarships, which give her new experiences. Her favorite camp is in Missouri because it has horseback riding, canoeing…Typical camp activities.”

Manners said she likes to find activities she can complete with her daughter.

“I find things to do with Alanna that we both enjoy,” Manners said. “We work at The Town and Gown Theater Theatre where Alanna can work backstage.”

Young, on the other hand, seems to salute mothers who attend college with young children.

“I purposely waited to come to college,” Young said. “I can’t imagine what it’d be like if my sons were younger.

“When they are older you still have to interact with your kids.”