Being a college student is tough even when the student has no financial worries and only needs to focus on school; it’s almost impossible to imagine how much harder those students that have jobs or even children must work in order to pass with the same grades as those with nothing extra on their plate. Being a parent is the toughest job out there, especially for those that are doing it all by themselves, but that’s exactly what 21-year-old Morgan King, a student at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is doing while she goes to school.
King is a therapeutic recreation major and a single mom who just went back to school this summer in an effort to complete her degree. When she missed an important class last month for her Human Development course, she swiftly emailed her professor to let her know why and was nervous about the response she would receive.
The 21-year-old had missed class because she couldn’t secure a baby sitter that morning for Korbyn, her 3-month-old daughter, after the baby’s paternal grandparents were unable to watch her like usual. Though Korbyn’s father isn’t involved in her life, the father’s parents help out where they can, which means they take the baby in the morning while King goes to class. Since King also works at a restaurant at night, she knew she couldn’t afford to find someone to watch her all day and stayed home and watch Korbyn that morning.
When King opened her email and saw the response from her professor, she said she was in tears at how understanding she was. The professor, Sally Hunter, told King to bring Korbyn to class if she was having problems getting someone to watch her and even said that she would hold the 3-month-old herself while instructing the class. Read Professor Hunter’s response in King’s original tweet below.
https://twitter.com/morgantking/status/875562158200770560
Perhaps the best part of the entire email, besides specifically saying she can bring her child, is Hunter telling King to let her know if there are other ways she can support the student. This demonstrates that Hunter understands that there are struggles single parents run into that no other student will have to deal with, and that sometimes these struggles are so unique that even professors aren’t aware of them. Recognizing that there might be more holding King back and offering to help her in any way is such an important characteristic for professors to have, and yet most would not have this encouraging response.
King lost her mother a year and a half ago to cancer and the loss has been extremely hard on her. When she got pregnant later that year and found that the father didn’t want to support her or their baby, she was even more devastated, but decided to keep the baby. While raising her infant daughter has been hard without the father and without King’s own mother, she is determined as ever to succeed in school and be the best mom she can be. Though only 2% of young moms complete school before the age of 30, King said that she wants to be in that 2% of moms and that she’s doing it for her baby.
“It is so hard,” King said. “But I am so determined to graduate and get my degree for Korbyn and I. It’s not just about me anymore. I have to do this for us.”
