Kristen Stafford wakes up at 6 am. She can barely open her eyes, and she goes to the kitchen to try and make some scrambled eggs. 

She looks at the clock and it is almost time to wake up her kids for school. After yelling at them a couple of times, they are finally awake and brushing their teeth. 

After eating breakfast in 10 minutes, the high school bus is in front of the house. She gives them their book bags and she kisses them on the forehead. She sees them running towards the bus; she can feel their excitement about life. She closes the door and finally there is some peace in the house. 

Then she remembers about her 9 a.m. class and she runs to her car with a cup of coffee in one hand and her car keys in the other. 

She arrives to her class. She is really not paying attention. She is mad, asking to herself why I am doing this? Do I really want this degree? She is drowning in negative thoughts, and then she takes out her phone to see how much longer she has to be sitting in this classroom and she sees on the screen of her phone the picture of her two little kids, smiling at her. And she just finds the answer to that previous question. She is there because of them.

These are some thoughts that Stafford has to deal with on her daily routine. She recently enrolled in Ashland University with a major in social work. She is a full-time student and a full-time mom. 

When you have kids your whole world changes. You have a different perception about life in general.  You are not by your own anymore, you have to look out for somebody else. You want to give them the best life possible. You want them to go to college and get an education. But how are you going to ask your kids to go to college if you never did? So that’s when young parents decide to start their path to get a college degree. 

Now, they have to try to do homework while their kids are running around them. Their minds are busy with assignments but their hearts want to go and play with them.

They know it is going to be hard but they know it is going to be worth it. 

Being a full-time student and having kids represents numerous challenges. Your schedules, your priorities – everything changes.

Your world turns upside down.

When you have kids, your priorities as a student are not the same as a regular student. Thursday doesn’t have the same meaning and getting your homework done becomes your priority. 

“I do all my homework in the week so I don’t have anything on the weekend so I can go home and spend time with my kids,” said Janie Yount, 24, media production student at AU. “My priority is doing my homework, getting stuff done.”

Yount has two young children. Jayson is two years old and Jay is four years old. Her oldest son was born on her 19^th birthday and her youngest daughter was born three days before her 21^st birthday.

“I couldn’t ask for better birthday present,” said Yount.

But this effort doesn’t only depend on the student; the support from family plays a huge role in the success or failure of the student.

Brian Kellog, a 40-year-old ex-marine, who studies philosophy at AU, mentions the sacrifices that not only him but his family have to make.

“When I can`t be with the kids, my wife has to be the one doing the extra reading or maybe watching a movie,” said Kellog. “Sometimes I have to say hey tonight I can’t, I have to write a report or study for an exam or things like that. They understand the importance but I don’t get as much free time with my family.”

Having kids at a young age can be seen as a negative impact to your life but for some people their kids give them a reason to be a better person. 

“They are blessings, they are something that keeps me hungry, keeps me drive to finish school and to be a good person in life,” said Quenton Scott, a business management student  at AU.

Scott has two kids, Carter Rhodes who is 5 years old and a little girl named Cassidy who is months.

“I wanted to better myself for them and in order to do that I have to complete college,” said Scott.

You can see in Stafford eyes the gratitude that she has towards her kids. 

“I don’t know if I would be back to school if I won’t get pregnant, I might be working at Denny`s because that makes enough money to pay the rent of my apartment and it was good enough for me. I was a really selfish person back then a really didn`t care,” said Stafford.

Stafford got pregnant at 21, with her first child, Clair.

At age of 36 Maureen Centa has six kids, and four of them are adopted.

For Centa her kids brought to her a passion. 

“One of the reasons why I came back to school was for my kids, four are adopted, so I have a passion for kids in foster care and adaption, so that’s why I came back to school to be a social worker,” said Centa.

Before getting pregnant with her first child, Centa dropped school because she ran out of money.

“When I first went to school I was kind of lost because I didn`t know what I wanted to do with my life and that’s what made it easier when I didn’t have money to stop,” said Centa. “Because I didn’t have a clear direction of what I was doing. So by having my kids I really got a passion in know what I wanted to do with my life.”

After more than eight years, Centa is finally going to get her degree next spring semester. 

One thing that came out of the mouth of every single student with kids was that the only thing they want is to be a good role model for their kids. Teach them the importance of education and the importance of never giving up on their goals.

“I do it because I have to. Because of my kids, I want them to know that even if things in life doesn’t go the way you planned to, you can still do something really great with your life,” said Stafford.

Scott wants to finish school, to encourage his kids to do the same.

“I know he is watching me, that she is watching me and I just want to set that previous example,” said Scott.

“If I do well in college; I get my degree and then I can show it to my own son and my own daughter. I mean daddy get a degree, why I can`t get it? I think it is like putting pressure on them,” said Scott.

Even though nobody regrets how things turn out in their lives, they will highly encourage their kids to be done with school first and then have a family.

“I don’t regret do it in the way I did but I think is easier when only impacts one person, when you are 19 or 20 rather than all of your children and your wife,” said Kellog.

There are so many times in life that it is hard to understand why some things happened. Life doesn’t give you what you want; it gives you what you need. And that is very hard to accept and understand but all those moments that we don’t understand were brought to us with a purpose. 

Kids are a blessing at any time in your life. Maybe they will bring you a headache but always along with a smile.

“I won’t change things, because I would be a different person and I like who I am now, things happened the way it happened for a reason you know?” said Stafford.