The life of a student parent

Kenneth Ramirez is a mass communication junior who has been a parent for the past month after the birth of his son April 3. 

“A day in the life has been no complete sleep, maybe like three hours a day,” Ramirez said. “My wife and I switch on and off; I let her sleep for three hours and, then, I sleep for three hours. And we kind of go through the whole day with that amount of sleep.”

He and his wife have a plan worked out: he goes to school for two classes from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays and goes back home to help out with the baby while his wife rests.

“I had it all planned out before the baby came in April,” Ramirez said. “I was like, ‘I don’t want to be coming to school every day,’ so I took a lot of asynchronous classes or synchronous classes or hybrid ones and, if I did come to school, it had to be like as few days as possible.”

He said every day is very different, having no set routine which causes them to be constantly adapting to the changes.

“If any other student parent out there is [reading this], communicate with your professors, especially ahead of time,” Ramirez said. “At the beginning of the semester I was like, ‘Just by the way, my wife is going to give birth by late March, early April, just letting you guys know.’

“And each month went by and I would let them know. It’s been great; my professors have been all really supportive, as they should, but it does help when the student is able to communicate.”

A full-time student at the moment, he is a disabled veteran. His wife is a high school teacher currently on maternity leave.

“Finding a job is actually pretty hard for me, even keeping one just because of my own sort of differences but, as for school, I tried to devote time to school and my homework and stuff and that happens around midnight to 3 in the morning,” Ramirez said. “I definitely sympathize with a lot of people out there that deal with this.

“I’ve been asking my wife, ‘How do single mothers do it?’ because we go to these appointments … and I can’t imagine, like, a single parent, a single mother, having to do all that on her own.”

Having a child has taught him a lesson: patience.

“I’m really impulsive and I want things to happen quickly,” Ramirez said. “… I’ve never been really good at being patient but, for the past month, being with my son, you have to be patient. You can’t speed up a baby. … It’s just waiting the whole time, and so it’s really taught me to be a lot more patient.”

The UTRGV Child Development Center on the Edinburg campus provides child-care services, available for students, faculty, staff and the community. It cares for children starting at 3 months until the age of 5. Ramirez said he did not know about the center until recently.

To enroll a child into the center, applicants must first join the waitlist, which does not guarantee enrollment of the child. For students, the cost per child 3 to 18 months is $165 per month; 19 months or older is $150. For faculty, 3 to 18 months is $175 and 19 months or older is $155. For the community, 3 to 18 months is $176 and 19 months or older is $160.

The center also provides support for Pell eligible, low-income students through the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) Grant, provided by the U.S. Department of Education, according to the center’s website.

“I just found out about them and it’s, like, that thing you don’t think about until it happens to you,” he said. “When we had our baby, I was looking at all avenues and child care … is so expensive. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, what am I going to do?’”

For more information about the center, visit utrgv.edu/child-development-center.  

Ramirez added he believes it is important to keep pushing each day.

“I know it is easy to say to be patient and stuff like that and it’s easy to listen to some person’s words,” he said. “Don’t think about, like, a week ahead. Just think about getting through today. Once tomorrow happens, get through that.”