Most college students have enough stresses on their own with homework, classes, having a job and daily responsibilities. Imagine having dirty diapers to change, dinner to cook and bills to pay in addition to school.

It may seem hard to imagine, but it’s the reality for 25 married couples on this campus. Couples with children do not sleep in for their 10 a.m. classes, go out to Stu’s on Tuesday nights or procrastinate with their homework. Their days start as early as 5 a.m. and end as late as 2 a.m. and it’s not uncommon for their busy schedules to affect their class attendance.

Students living in on-campus married housing prefer the married lifestyle and living close to campus, but what they do not enjoy is the small apartment size space or their busy schedules.

Carolyn and Henry Hughes are both industrial technology majors, and while they share the same interests, they also share different schedules so they can take care of their 1-year-old daughter.

“I go to class on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and he goes to classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” Carolyn Hughes said. “Sometimes I have to end up going to class late, (because I’m) waiting for him to get back from work.”

Juggling work and school can be difficult, especially with the added responsibility of being parents.

“We have a child. When she sleeps, we cannot just leave her and go to class, ” said the Hughes. Their daughter attends day-care all week so the couple can both work and go to class.

As for professors understanding her long days, Carolyn Hughes said some are more lenient, but others don’t care what the circumstances are as long as she gets her work done.

“Sometimes I fall asleep while doing homework,” she said.

Katie and Ryan McDaniel moved into married housing on campus in mid-August.

They said they wanted to live in married housing basically for the convenience of having all the utilities and rent taken from financial aid in addition to being able to walk to campus.

“In my opinion, these apartments are pretty small but it meets our needs,” Ryan McDaniel said. “I have found other subsidized housing for cheaper, but not as close to campus.”

McDaniel is a graduate student in the speech communication department, while his wife is an undergraduate speech communication major. Right now, McDaniel is enjoying his teaching assistantship after finishing his undergraduate degree with departmental honors in speech communication and philosophy.

Their reasons for getting married were simple.

“We both were going to be students, and financially speaking, it was advantageous for us to be married and we knew we wanted to emotionally and (were ready to) spend the rest of our life together,” Ryan McDaniel said.

“(Marriage)provides a lot of stability and fulfillment while you’re in school,” he said. “It just depends on what kind of experience you want to have in college and what you are ready for.”

McDaniel said marriage and college life can coexist.

“The greatest challenge we face is finding time with each other with the demands of school,” he said. “Since Katie and I are in the same department, we’re kind of a unique couple who is just known.”

Melinda and Adam Jackson are another couple living on campus with a 17-month-old daughter. Melinda is a senior psychology and family and consumer sciences major, while her husband is a student at Parkland College in Champaign.

As a student, she says her biggest problem is group projects, because she has to meet with them before 5:30 p.m. when her daughter is out of daycare.

“Sometimes I have to bring them information,” Jackson said. “I still do my part.”

She explained that married housing is inhabited by a unique group composed of not only married couples, but single moms, graduate students and foreign exchange students.

Jackson will graduate this May and said the hardest part about being a mom is balancing her time as she student teaches in Tuscola this semester.

“I cannot ever procrastinate or sleep in,” she said, “But in my major my professors in family consumer sciences like to talk about children, but other moms I know who are business majors professors don’t understand the lifestyle.”

Deama Forrest and her husband are still students, but no longer lives in married housing.

“It was too small of a capacity and having a baby and a husband was too much for that small space,” said Forrest.

The couple moved off-campus to an apartment for increased privacy, more closet space and an extra room for their baby after living in married housing for a year. Forrest said she tries to keep her personal life separate from her studies.

“I try to keep it to myself with my professors. I don’t want them to feel sorry for me,” she said.

However, she said getting married has changed her and her husband’s outlook.

“Our goals are more determined now. Before I had a child, I wasn’t into the books and now I am more goal-oriented,” she said. “It’s cool. Having someone to talk to everyday and seeing my daughter’s bright smile makes my day when I pick her up from daycare, it’s makes it all worth it.”