How Having a Child Can Affect College Students
Emily Meyer
Kansas State University
FSHS 302

How Having a Child Can Affect College Students
Everyone looks at college as being the best years of their life. Although for some students it can turn into a living nightmare. About half of the pregnancy within students, with some college education, is unplanned. (Olmstead, Koon, Puhlman, Pasley, and Fincham, 2013, P. 808) While a child can be a great assets to one’s life, for a college student it can be stressful and even difficult for them to learn how to balance their needs with the needs of their child’s. There are many different factors to how a child can affect student’s life in college. These factors include whether or not they return to college, how they will make time to get everything done, stress, how their social life will be effected, how men react to unplanned pregnancy, religion, and also birth control and emergency contraceptives. Typically a college student, at a university, will take about four years to complete the program and graduate. When faced with the fact that a child is in the student’s life or will be coming into their life it can change the way the student might go about college. For starters the student may want to wait for a couple of years to finish their schooling. This gives the parent some time to concentrate on the child as they are growing up. Although this might seem like a good idea at the time, it can also cause hardships to complete the degree. Only 6% of individuals that had to begin the tradition roles of being a parent sooner than others were able to complete the bachelor’s degree. (Goldrick-Rab and Sorensen, 2010) According to Goldrick-Rab and Sorensen (2010), she believes that this is because single parents will only enroll as a part time student making it a longer amount of time to complete a degree and eventually running out of time.
Although these students may return to school, the amount of college parents that actually finish college is low. (Goldrick-Rab and Sorensen, 2010) For those college parents who decide to go back to college, they may want to attend a community college. The reason they might make this choice is because they may not have enough money to attend a four- year college or have struggled academically before. (Goldrick-Rab and Sorensen, 2010) Even though single parents may think that they have time to go back to college it can end up being overwhelming and cause a person not to return to college at all. The stress with being a new parent, trying to be financially stable and trying to fit school in between everything else, it can become too much for the person to handle. They are not able to make time for school and the baby and must choose what will be more important. For those single college parents that are able to attend college while having a child, they learn how to manage time to the best of their ability. Time management can be very difficult for college students that do not have children. They have to find time to study, attend class, do the homework, go to work, and even make time for friends. College students that have children not only have to do all of that, but also make time for the child and its needs. Goldrick-Rab and Sorensen say that single parents feel constrained by trying to spend time with the child and also having to work long hours in order to support both of them. (2010) Single parent families suffer from lack of time almost always. (Harvey and Mukhopadhyay, 2007, p. 64) They do not have enough time in the day to attend work, do the appropriate housework, tend to their child, and still make up for school and leisure time. Single parents will wear themselves down before they have enough time and energy to get everything done. This lack of time management can lead to stress.
Stress can come from many different events. It can come from something as easy as vacations and breaks, or as difficult as new responsibilities. (Heckert, Niebling, and Ross, 1999) By having a child before someone is ready, they are going to have to adjust faster to new responsibilities than what they would have to with a planned pregnancy. Being a pregnant college student, stress will not only come from trying to achieve high goals academically (Herkert, Niebling, and Ross, 1999), but also trying to care for a child and making that the child can achieve its full potential to. There is also stress that comes from a period time, such as self-esteem problems and money problems. (Herkert, Niebling, and Ross, 1999) These may start out as small problems, but eventually become an issue that a person cannot get away from. As Herkert, Niebling, and Ross talked about their findings, they mentioned that “students should be informed of the campus resources available to help them.” (1999) There will be many resources that will help normal teenagers that are going through college and there is also resources that can help college students to raise a successful child.
Some of these resources can be family and friends. Even though a college student that is either pregnant or has a child they will still want to be connected with family and friends. The concept of going out for a night is much different from before the child to after a child. Before a child was in the picture, a student would go out to a party, probably consume alcohol, and stay out till late in the morning. When a college student has a child it changes. Of course a parent will be able to go out, but they will have to find someone to watch their child and they will not be able to stay out as late as they want. The person that is watching the child may be a family member or they may have to hire a babysitter. In order to hire a babysitter there comes in the factor of money. According to Forry, high-quality day care can be too expensive for the single parents. (2009, p.43) As for child care subsidies, only around 12%-15% of families are eligible for them. (Forry, 2009, p.43) If it is hard for normal single parents to pay for child care, how do people expect college parents to pay for their kids to stay at child care? College students may have to start working longer hours in order to pay off bills that they have, yet this only means that their child will have to stay in daycare longer than normal and cost more money. When looking at people who received a child subsidies, parents monthly cost was decrease by $188. (Forry, 2009, p.53) The subsidies will allow the parent to save some money towards groceries or bills. Although if a single parent is struggling, family and friends will be there to help and will ask for little or nothing in return. There is of course the other parent that could take care of the child while the other one is working.
Although mothers are typically the care takers, there are times where the father will be one that has to keep the child. In a research experiment done by Olmstead et al, (2013) they found out that 86.5% of men expect to be involved in raising their child. (p.812) The fathers want to take action for their duties even though the timing of the child may not be ideal. Some men even took it farther and explained that they would like to parent the child and also be married to the women. These guys represented 44.6% of the total sample (Olmstead et al, 2013, p 812) Within the other group only 10.1% of men did not want to raise the child. (Olmstead et al, 2013, p 813) Majority of these men will highly suggest abortion or other ways to terminate the pregnancy and adoption says Olmstead et al. (2013, p.813)
Many males also talked about why they would raise the child. Some men stated that it was half their doing so they have to accept responsibility, while others deemed it as being the right thing to do. (Olmstead et al, 2013, p. 815) Majority of the men in this study kept the child in mind. Some of them wanted to give the child the best chance it could receive and others did not believe that they would be able to father the child to the best of the ability, in that case 18.7% thought that adoption would be beneficial to the child. (Olmstead et al, 2013, p. 816) These findings prove that men know how complex an unplanned pregnancy can be and how it can effect themselves. (Olmstead et al, 2013, p. 817). There is also the factor of how we are able to prevent unplanned pregnancy and stop hurting someone’s chance at the full college experience. According to Hickey, emergency contraceptive methods “have been available to women for decades.” (2009, p. 399) There should be no reason that there was 1.22 million abortions in 2004. (Hickey, 2009, p.399) Plan B was approved for purchase in 2006 for people over the age of 18 and is a reasonable cost. Although these methods are out there, not a lot of women are informed about emergency contraceptives. (Hickey, 2009, p. 401) When women ask health care providers about emergency contraceptives, women feel as if they are being judged and do not want to purchase it in front of them. (Hickey, 2009, p.401) For those women that want to use emergency contraceptives they should be able to and not have to feel embarrassed about it. Of course there is other forms of birth control such as the pill, the patch, condoms, and the Depo-Provera shot. (girlshealth.gov) By increasing awareness of contraceptives and birth control, we can reduce the amount of college parents. There are some cases that birth control is not accepted by the community. A study done by Aalsma, Woodrome, Downs, Hensel, Zimet, Orr, and Fortenberry proved that women who are more religious have a lower sexual behavior and also a lower number of sex partners than people that are not as religious.(2013) Aalsma el at. is certain that the religious belief along with sexual behavior are a part of most teenager lives. (2013) Although Landor el at. says that by increasing the amount of religion a person learns, the less sexual active teenagers will be. Even if parents can influence a girl to abstain from sex there is still the influence of her peers. With the authoritative parenting style a parent will teach their child what is right and what is wrong. Parent with strong religious commitment with affect their children into making choices based on their religious views and how they were raised. (Landor el at, 2011, p. 305) Although when a religious college student would become pregnant her family may react poorly to the news. This is because it is against many religions to have sex before marriage as it breaks the 6th commandment. Thus, when a women gets pregnant out of wedlock it can turn her family against her because she was not following God’s rules. For a college student this would be the hard to bare because she has a child and has no family that can help support her. It will also be hard for her to get her child baptized in the church because she decided to have sex outside of marriage. It is important for a child to be planned so that the child will be raised the way that the parent was raised.
Even though children can brighten someone’s day it is important that the child is planned experience. Unplanned pregnancies can affect a college student’s life in many ways such as whether or not they return to college, how they will make time to get everything done, stress, how their social life will be effected, and how men react to unplanned pregnancy, religion, and birth control and emergency contraceptives. As for those people that already have a child and are still trying to attend college or thinking about going back it is important that they think about the pros and the cons of the situation. Not all unplanned pregnancies have to end in despair but can turn into an amazing learning experience.

Resources
Aalsma, M. C., Woodrome, S. E., Downs, S. M., Hensel, D. J., Zimet, G. D., Orr, D. P., et al. (2013). Developmental trajectories of religiosity, sexual conservatism and sexual behavior among female adolescents. Journal of Adolescence, 36(6), 1193-1204.
Forry, N. D. (2009). The Impact of Child Care Subsidies on Low-Income Single Parents: An Examination of Child Care Expenditures and Family Finances. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 30(1), 43-54.
Goldrick-Rab, S., & Sorensen, K. (2010). Unmarried Parents in College. The Future of Children, 20(2), 179-203.
Harvey, A. S., & Mukhopadhyay, A. K. (2007). When Twenty-Four Hours is not Enough: Time Poverty of Working Parents. Social Indicators Research, 82(1), 57-77.
HECKERT, T. M., NIEBLING, B. C., & ROSS, S. E. (1999). SOURCES OF STRESS AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS. College Student Journal, 33(2), 312.
Hickey, M. T. (2009). Female College Students' Knowledge, Perceptions, and Use of Emergency Contraception. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, & Neonatal Nursing, 38(4), 399-405.
Landor, A., Simons, L. G., Simons, R. L., Brody, G. H., & Gibbons, F. X. (2011). The Role of Religiosity in the Relationship Between Parents, Peers, and Adolescent Risky Sexual Behavior. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 40(3), 296-309.
Olmstead, S. B., Koon, J. T., Puhlman, D. J., Pasley, K., & Fincham, F. D. (2013). “College Men, Unplanned Pregnancy, and Marriage: What Do They Expect?” Journal of Sex Research, 50(8), 808-819.
Types of birth control. (n.d.). Home. Retrieved October 27, 2014, from http://www.girlshealth.gov/body/sexuality/