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I am writing my novel from the viewpoint of a 15-year-old boy who is called Alex. I had originally planned to write the story from the viewpoint of his mother, but a lot of thinking time and jotting down notes showed me this would be wrong. Thankfully, I now know how the story should be written. It took a long time, though.
Quite a bit of the story will be written in first person, present tense. This is because I will be including a fair few scenes showing what you could call flashbacks. These will detail my main characters early childhood to early teens, which is crucial to understanding the intricate parts to the story. Between them will be the scenes in present tense.
Alex's mum gives birth to him at 22 years old during her studying at university. As the viewpoint to the story is through him, to explain her time at university, and indeed other parts of her life, are not necessary (at least not from her view, anyway.) What I'm concerned about is how having a child would impact on her life at university. I've never been to university, so I can't claim to have experience of what going to one is like. But I'd imagine having a baby would impact a lot on her studies, maybe even to the point where she has to retake a year? Again, I don't know if that's even a valid option.
As for the care of Alex, I have solid ideas down on paper for that. The main reason I'm eager to know how this would affect his mother's studies is because when I write the 'flashback' scenes, some of it will concentrate on his mother not being around all the time due to her studies and other activities. I feel now is a good time to research the issue as I don't want to have written a majority of the story to find out crucial elements are inaccurate.
Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
I lost touch, so don't know what happened to her.
Also 22 years ago the system would have been different.
This could be one of those times when you need to try some creative thinking.
Is there somewhere you could put a notice up asking for people who were in university, at your chosen time period ,to assist you with some background research.
You could make a brief questionaire covering diffrent aspects of life and put your main query in it in some manner.
If you have a University near you, many of them have an organisation for past alumni to get in touch and update them on their careers. See if they could help you in some way.
The year I spent at Uni with her as a toddler was a delight. The uni had a superb nursery which was available at subsidised cost for students, and they also had accommodation provision for single parents - a great flat, part of a city centre halls of residence - which she and I loved living in. Did it impact on my studies? Well, yes - and in a very positive way. Whereas I had been rather neutral about my degree, having a child makes everything much more motivational as a means to a good end for one's child, and that includes studying. I suppose it does set you apart from fellow students in that you now have responsibilites that most don't share, and I gained a set of new friends who were also student parents, some of them mature students.
You have some amusing times as a student parent, including in my case my daughter developing chickenpox during my finals! You have a lot of time to spend together, much, much more than you do when you are employed and have a child. Money was tight, yes, but that is true for all students anyway and we found lots of things to do in the area for free or at very low cost. We walked everywhere!
I graduated at the end of my final year in 1992 aged 23 with a BSc Hons degree in psychology and a 3 and a half year old daughter. Does it impact on your life after uni? Not really, or not any more than having a young child does on any parent I guess - I started work straight away after I graduated, working in a variety of roles including in mental health, fundraising and as chief exec of a charity. I am now self-employed running my own consultancy business and coming up to 38 years old (in December!). My daughter is 17 and half now and in the sixth form herself, and she can remember with great fondness her year at 'new college' as we called it.
I think the whole experience was a very positive one for both of us. I am a lot younger than most of the parents of her school friends though, that is one aspect that might be useful for your story!
Katy, thank you so much for your post. It has helped a lot. I hope you don't mind, but I printed what you wrote as part of my research.
A key aspect to my story is the fact that Alex's mother is quite young when compared to his age. In my character descriptions, I've written bits about Alex's early childhood. A key character to the story is one of his grandparents, who, after he was born, helped enormously in raising Alex. I hope this doesn't sound naive, but I don't envisage his mother missing a lot of her studies because of having a child. She is studying medicine, and where the novel is in present tense, she is a GP at the local surgery. What I have been seeing is Alex not spending a great deal of time with her during her studies. He learns the ways of childhood through his grandparent. The novel centres around certain hostilities between Alex and his mother, which go back to her days of studying.
What I'm attempting to do with this story is very complex, and perhaps over ambitious for a new writer. But I feel compelled to go somewhere with it.
Do you mind if I ask how much your family supported you when you had your daughter?
Thanks again for your post. I learnt a lot of things I had no idea about before.
When we had gone back to uni, mum used to have my (toddler) daughter to stay with her for a long weekend every 3 or 4 weeks so that I could have a free weekend either to go out or, more usually, to do some intensive work such as writing an essay or working on my dissertation.
When we had gone back to uni, mum used to have my (toddler) daughter to stay with her for a long weekend every 3 or 4 weeks so that I could have a free weekend either to go out or, more usually, to do some intensive work such as writing an essay or working on my dissertation.
In my final year at university, which was 1985-86, so about the right time slot, one close friend had a baby unexpectedly at the age of 22 - so unexpectedly that even she didn't know she was expecting it! She thought she had appendicitis and went to hospital, only to find she was in labour. The baby (a boy) was fostered for 3 weeks until she and her boyfriend got their heads around what had happened and could decide what to do next.
My friend and I were doing 4 year courses, but her boyfriend had finished his degree the year before. She moved off campus and into a flat with him in a nearby town - I seem to recall he was unemployed at the time. So she had someone else there permanently to help out. Still hard for her, though - I seem to recall she had some dispensation with regard to coursework and exams (our final degree grade was assessed on a combination of both). She had the baby in December 1985, so had him to look after for most of her final year.
And in case anyone wonders - no I didn't notice she was pregnant, either. She was still in her usual size 12 jeans right up until the day she gave birth! The baby was fit and healthy and a good weight in spite of her drinking, being on the pill, no ante-natal care, etc etc. Apparently, when she had her second (planned) child, it was also hard to tell she was pregnant - I read many years later that some babies 'tip backwards' in the womb and are a less obvious 'bump'. Anyway, that's by the by and no doubt not relevant to your novel! Good luck with it.
Thanks again.