Motherhood and university life

Women who choose to have it all – children and a degree – deserve every support

A fulltime student at Zayed University, Fatima Ali Al Sayegh is a part of the Hareem Club, a club set up to support mothers who are studying at the university. Delores Johnson / The National

We often talk about the challenges faced by working mothers in balancing career and family and the ways that society as a whole can offer support. In this country, where many Emirati women get married right before or during college, the student mother is a fact of life and she needs a helping hand if she is to manage a family and her coursework – and succeed at both.

Zayed University's new Hareem support group for student mothers is tackling this issue head on, as The National reported yesterday. Hareem is run by and for student mothers and offers help and advice on an eclectic range of subjects that includes meeting college deadlines and babysitting. It is also playing an advocacy role by arguing for more part-time options for student mothers at ZU.

Hareem’s example should be emulated in other universities. Helping student mothers share coping strategies, tips, tricks – and childminders’ phone numbers – will make it easier for women to stay in higher education or go back to college after they have had children. Even without support groups, married women are doing extraordinarily well at university.

In 2012, a ZU study of 3,672 undergraduates showed that married students had a better grade point average (2.76) than those who were single (2.62). This is significant as women accounted for 90.2 per cent of the sample. It's worth noting that ZU's Abu Dhabi campus already has an early-childhood learning centre, where student mothers can leave their children while they're in class.

Young mothers deserve support in their endeavours because it is better not to leave having children to later in life and get into a situation, as has been reported recently in the UK, where the highest maternal mortality rates are among older women. Most of these women delay motherhood to pursue higher education, find a good job and earn more. So far, thankfully, this is not an issue in this country. And support for young mothers will help ensure it never is.