My mother’s daughter: The story of a student mother and her child

By Sauliha Alli

These past few months, as I worked on the planning team of the Redefining Traditional initiative, I have reflected a lot on an aspect of my positionality that I had largely neglected: my own experience as the child of a student parent.

Prior to joining this team, the term ‘student parent’ existed outside of my vocabulary. While my mother had been (and still is) a post-secondary student with children since I was ten years old, she never self-identified as such. The term ‘student parent’, used repeatedly in our work, really called attention to an experience, different from my own in many ways, which I had not before sought to understand.

A few weeks ago, however, when my family threw my sister and I an embarrassing convocation ceremony in the backyard (complete with fake diplomas, my dad as President Gertler, and my younger sister the self-nominated mace holder), I was taken back to a time just five years prior, when my mother also graduated from U of T Scarborough. As I reminisced about the experiences and opportunities I had over the years, I thought about the parallels and differences between her undergraduate experience and my own.

That evening, chatting with her on the front porch, I listened to her share her own story as a student mother with four children. It was the first time that I had really asked her how those years as a mature student were, listening to her experience rather than understanding it from my own place as a witness. That exercise in empathy led me to understand holistically and uncensoredly, the challenges she faced, but also the insights she gained.

Too much of the student parent narrative has focused on hardship. The stories of student parents as people, who also experience positive emotions, and joyful moments has been overlooked. Advocating for this group in a way that is respectful requires that we hear both sides of the story—the good and the bad. Here, I want to share both sides of my mother’s student parent story, as well as my own as a participant in hers. What this has ultimately been is an experience of learning and personal growth for both of us, which we’d love others to hear and learn from.

Lessons from a Student Mother

1 – Have a Plan

One important piece of advice that she shared in our conversation was having a plan. At the beginning of starting school, she set a goal to earn a CPA designation, and mapped out all of the steps, academic, personal and professional, that she would need to take to get there. She knew what courses she needed to take and exactly when, and which connections she needed to make. Despite experiencing multiple setbacks and deviations, this goal never wavered. She successfully completed her degree in three years, and is still working towards achieving that overarching goal.

2 – Practice Resilience

There were challenges, nonetheless, that she encountered over the years. Among them was returning to school after then years of raising children, and fulfilling domestic duties, and also adapting to life in a new country. In the higher education space, feelings of embarrassment, impostorhood and not belonging were particularly frequent. Surrounded by classmates that were half her age, who had the opportunity to complete their education with their friends at the age she wished she had, led to feelings of insecurity at times. She never shared the fact that she had children, for fear that it would marginalize her further, or raise questions about her intelligence. She felt pressure to complete her degree at an accelerated pace, as she was “already behind.” While there is much to be said about a system that leads students to feel this way, she also recognized over time, the role that her own self-doubt played in this. Confiding in others, including me, about the difficulty she was facing was a coping mechanism she adopted, and helped her through initial feelings of wanting to quit. Learning to take breaks and have designated family time improved her sense of balance. Resilience was a skill that she had to learn, and with practice, came to master.

3 – Ask for Help

Time management was hugely important in juggling competing priorities, and part of this entailed knowing when to ask for help. For a period of time, my grandma would spend weeks on end at our home, handling most of the domestic and childcare duties, including taking my younger sister (the mace holder) to school. My father took on more responsibilities in driving us around for school projects and extracurricular activities. My mother had to be vocal about the need for self-reliance from her children, for us to bus home from school, do our own laundry, and learn to drive. Reaching out for help was a key aspect of time management. By the end of her degree, she was completing assignments a few weeks before the deadline (something I envy, as I still find myself starting things the day of (like this post!)).

In my own experience as the child of a student parent, I admit that there were times that I wished that my mother could have spent more time with me. There were moments where, as understanding as I wished I could be, I was frustrated by her frustrations. And there were times when I was sick of eating all of the traditional dishes my grandma made and just wanted my mom’s cooking. But looking back, I see many benefits to having a student parent mother to my own development, and I feel pride and satisfaction. So here we go, lessons from a student parent’s daughter.

Lessons from a Student Parent’s Daughter

1 – Learn self-reliance

One of the benefits of always being one of the few students in my class with a student parent mom was that it taught me early on to be independent. Chores were not something I saw as my mom’s duty, which I had to be paid to do, rather a shared responsibility of all members of the household. At school, I learned to solve problems independently, and ask friends or teachers for help when I encountered something I did not understand. I was given a lot of autonomy to decide how I spent my time, and this created a space for me to learn about my own interests and develop maturity. I credit the person I am today, my nerdy, perfectionistic and always-ready-to-pitch-in self, to the opportunities for self-reliance my mother created as a student parent.

2 – Develop intellectual curiosity

Seeing my mother study from a young age really fed my intellectual curiosity early on. In all of her challenges, a desire to learn was a motivating factor that kept her going. Our home became an almost-library where mother and children often studied together. Whatever she was learning that week, she often shared at the dinner table on Friday nights, and this really provided me with a perspective far beyond my years on a lot of issues. I shared in that curiosity as a high school student, and often read her university textbooks with the hopes of being inspired. Having a student parent mother created an academic environment in my home, and that shaped my intellectual curiosity from a young age.

3 – Relearn the meaning of motherhood

Last but not least, being raised by a student parent mother gave me a renewed understanding of motherhood, and its relationship to higher education. In Guyana, where I was born, women often face considerable pressure to rear children, and are denied opportunities for post-secondary education due to cultural and economic barriers. At the age of 27, my mother had already given birth to four children and been out of school for almost ten years. When we immigrated to Canada, her being the first woman in the family to attend university was an act of rebellion. She had to constantly defend her decision to extended family, and dispel myths that an educated, career woman could only neglect her family. She taught me, by example, that motherhood and higher education were not mutually exclusive. Women were not compelled to live a life of self-sacrifice for their children, nor did their only value lie in fulfilling domestic responsibilities. I gained this renewed understanding of motherhood at a young age, and I have carried it with me throughout the years.

So that’s my story. Well at least part of it. Reflecting more on this, I think that there is a lot we can learn as educators, partners and advocates for student parent success. When I reimagine the family-friendly higher education space, I think of ways that we can normalize the experience of student parents like my mother. For starters, enrolling more student parents, and reducing barriers of access, can increase the number of student parents on campus, as well as their sense of belonging. Online classes were a gift to my mom, who often faced scheduling difficulties with part-time work, commuting and picking up kids from school, so more of these can certainly help. Finally, thinking more about her experience as a student on a satellite campus (UTSC), it is clear that we need more student parent representatives in governance and student groups. I envision policy changes to the Department of Student Life that make this a constitutional requirement for large clubs. A decentralized branch of the Family Care Office at this campus would also have been useful in building and supporting this community locally.

As my involvement in this project comes to an end, I think of ways that I can continue to do the work of supporting student parents in the higher education space in my personal and professional life. Part of that starts at home, where I can support my mother in her (now post-grad) studies, and part of that is at school, where I must actively work to include student parents in student support programming. We all play a role in changing the higher education narrative, and I encourage you to also share your own experience, insights, and vision for a reimagined family-friendly space with our community. Meanwhile, please enjoy a picture from our backyard graduation below!

Sauliha Alli is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto Scarborough’s Department of Psychology. She is also the Conference and Event Coordinator at the Innovation Hub. As the child of a student parent, Sauliha finds meaning in being able to improve the sense of belonging and community for female student parents like her mother.