When semesters follow trimesters

For Patrisa Buster ’10, spring semester of her junior year was complicated, not only because of her junior paper or her time-consuming extracurriculars — including belly dancing and Tae Kwon Do — but because she was pregnant. Buster gave birth to her son Jayden this past June.

For a few undergraduates at Princeton, financial considerations include not just tuition and textbooks but also daycare; social worries involve not just obtaining Street passes but battling social stigmas against young mothers; and a balanced schedule juggles academics not just with extracurriculars but also with diaper changes and bedtime stories. Living the Princeton experience while raising a child poses unique challenges. But parenthood and the Princeton experience are not mutually exclusive, the women said, and living both is deeply rewarding.

A balancing act

Lykes-Kim returned to the United States to begin her Princeton career in September 2007, while her daughter and husband stayed in Korea. Being away from her family was challenging, as Lykes-Kim missed milestones like her daughter’s first steps and first words. The hardest part, however, was returning to Korea during winter break and realizing that Nadia “didn’t speak any English,” she said.

Yet there was an upside to her separation from her daughter, Lykes-Kim said: It meant she could live in undergraduate housing and enjoy a “normal freshman experience.”

The next fall, Nadia came to Princeton, while her father remained in Korea, a time that Lykes-Kim described as “really hard.” At first, Lykes-Kim said she brought Nadia with her to evening commitments because she thought the two roles of mother and student “were fully compatible.” But gradually, she said she realized that it’s better when “those two lives are largely separate.”

Lykes-Kim’s life was considerably eased when her husband moved to Princeton later that fall, but it still “took a while to find balance,” she said. Nadia is in daycare from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. every day, and before Lykes-Kim had a car, she took a shuttle to transport Nadia to and from a local daycare. This often meant rushing from classes to meet the requisite pick-up time. Now her husband generally watches Nadia in the evening when he comes home from work so Lykes-Kim can focus on her schoolwork.

For Buster, figuring out how to balance life as a student with life as a mother has been more straightforward. Jayden lives at her home in Bridgeport, Conn. with Buster’s mother, grandmother and two sisters, and Buster goes home every weekend to be with him.

Because of the timing of her pregnancy, Buster completed her junior year without taking any time off and had most of the summer to recover. Buster said it was “rougher being pregnant” than it is to be a mother, recalling insatiable cravings for Lunchables at inopportune hours and many 5 a.m. Wawa runs.

On the other hand, she noted, being pregnant “kept [her] more focused” since she no longer went to the Street or drank alcohol.

Both Buster and Lykes-Kim have continued with some extracurriculars. Buster is still belly dancing and doing Tae Kwon Do on campus, and Lykes-Kim volunteers with Community House, an organization dedicated to closing the minority achievement gap.

Lykes-Kim had always wanted to get involved in something on campus, she said, adding that it “took me a while to find something that means enough to me that I’ll sacrifice time otherwise spent with my family.”

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Financial Concerns

To help cover the costs of raising a child, Lykes-Kim participates in the University’s Student Child Care Assistance Program (SCCAP), which, according to the program’s website, “provides assistance to eligible graduate and undergraduate students with pre-kindergarten children to help them meet the cost of child care.” The program provides a grant of up to $5,000 per child, for up to two children, to eligible students.

Lykes-Kim said she “can’t complain about the ways the college has financially provided for us.” She added that she takes advantage of many resources available to graduate students and currently lives in graduate housing.

Yet even with the assistance given by SCCAP and her husband’s income, her budget is tight. She has often brought Nadia to the Korean Language Tables offered by residential college dining halls as a way to not only practice her and her daughter’s language skills, but also to get a “free meal.”

Buster is not eligible for SCCAP since her son does not live with her.

Social Stigmas

Both Lykes-Kim and Buster said they worried about the social stigmas that might be attached to their pregnancies. At first, Buster said she was “afraid that people would look down on [her]” for being pregnant. She noted that she had discovered people’s reactions to be the “complete opposite.”

“People surprised me,” she said, adding that the support she received from her friends and University administrators was “a big factor in … going through with [the pregnancy].”

“Having a kid [at my age] comes with certain stereotypes and stigmas,” Lykes-Kim said, adding that she “expects people to ask questions” and is “more upset when people make assumptions.”

“I’m not ashamed or embarrassed,” she said.

Like Buster, Lykes-Kim relies heavily on emotional support from her friends. She was surprised at how supportive even her friends’ parents were, offering her old books and furniture. Yet she does find it hard not having many peers to “talk to about baby-world,” she added.

When asked what advice she would give to women at Princeton who might find themselves pregnant, Buster stressed that she would like to dispel the misconception held by many females that being a student and being a mother are irreconcilable.

“You can have both,” she said.