A great many people today say they don’t want a baby because they want to build a career, because they don’t have enough money, or because they are afraid they will have to drop out of university if they have a baby, and so on. Studying with a baby? My wife likes to say: “If you want to, you find a way. If you don’t, you find an excuse.”
S-Dad wrote this post on the last day of 2017.
A few days ago our Sofka turned 19 months old, and today the old year ends and tonight a new one begins. While she runs around the flat feeding us pieces of tangerine, I am trying to sum up not only what Mima and I have done this year, but over the past 19 months, ever since she has been with us. I wanted to put it all down on paper and see whether she has slowed us down or, on the contrary, sped us up and motivated us to give our very best.
About seventeen and a half months ago, so not even six weeks after Sofka came into the world, I sat my first exams at university. Honestly, I still don’t know how I managed to pass those two modules (each module consisted of four or five subjects, and for the exam I had to learn every one of them).
Of course, I would never have managed it without my Mima. She took on looking after Sofia and the home so that I could focus on studying.
Taking turns with the housework and the childcare is the little secret of our success. Without it, we would not have achieved anything in our studies.
And I believe it will be the same when we are writing our PhDs or working.
The home is a priority, and both partners have to pitch in, not always just one of them.
Even before Sofka was born, Mima and I made a study plan (I should point out that here in Germany students mostly choose for themselves which courses they take each semester and then sit exams in), and we stuck to it strictly. That meant, however, that every minute counts when it comes to studying, and there is no time to waste.
When it’s time to study, you study!
Drinking coffee and drifting around the internet were a luxury we had before the baby came. We don’t have it now, but we don’t miss it either. Every minute lost on unimportant things meant (and still means) one minute less with Sofia or one minute less for studying.
So with a baby, time is spent far more meaningfully and better. We didn’t even know how much of it we had until Sofka arrived.
Thanks to this way of seeing time (or life), over the past year and a half I passed about 15 exams, did a six week internship in the university archive and managed to take an intensive course in Ancient Greek.
In the same period Mima wrote five papers and drew up the plan for her master’s thesis. I honestly think that without Sofka we would have got through maybe 70% of all that by now.
For most of this year, though, we also had to worry about money, because our scholarships had run out, but luckily I got a job on a big project at the university library. The work was demanding and there was a lot of it, especially because I had to go to lectures at the same time and fit it all around the internship I was doing back then. But I knew our little family could live on that job for the next six months, and Mima helped me a lot with everything, so nothing felt too hard.
The only thing that was hard for me was not spending more time with Sofka.
But that money didn’t last forever either, and now we both had to look for new jobs. With God’s help, we both started working at the university. They are really “student” jobs and you don’t earn much, but money isn’t everything. I have to say that I used to run from the very idea of working at a university, and now I am very proud of my job.
The most precious gift you can get in life doesn’t fit under any Christmas tree.
Still, despite our studies and jobs, we have both found time for what you might call “food for the soul”.
For almost six months now Mima has been running this blog, which grew directly out of our experience as parents and wouldn’t exist without our daughter. We are very happy to have got in touch with so many of you, and it makes us even happier when we see that our experience has helped someone in some way.
When we see that one of our posts has helped, we jump for joy, literally!
Besides happily writing for the blog, I am also translating a book at the moment, which will hopefully be published in the middle of next year. That project somehow came back to life after Sofka arrived, because I got this feeling that I want her to be proud of me one day.
Of course, between all these duties and jobs, there are moments when we falter, when we get tired or ill and think we can’t go on. But luckily those thoughts are soon forgotten, because Sofka is there to chase them away and give us that shot of love and strength that could make you fly.
And then you stop, look back, see that your little angel gave you the strength to do the almost impossible, and wonder why they didn’t come sooner, because who knows how far ahead you would be now.
Dear readers, on behalf of S-Mama Blog I wish you a happy new year 2018, happy holidays, lots of health, lots of love, and fulfilment in everything you do. May your little angels give you even more strength and love to keep going and be happy!
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