As Tiffany Mayes sat at a table in the Idaho Commons and reached into a cylindrical bottle to grab a snack for her 1-year-old daughter, Chloe, a woman paused to smile at the baby in the heart-dappled pink pants and white long-sleeve shirt.
“Has she started to walk?” the woman asked.
“Oh,” Mayes said. “She”s trying.”
Tess Fox | Argonaut
Tiffany and Chloe Mayes enjoy the sunshine on Hello Walk Thursday morning. Mayes is a University of Idaho senior.
Chloe, standing in Mayes” lap with the support of her mother”s arm around her belly, waved the star-shaped Gerber Puffs snack in her hand and smiled.
Mayes, a University of Idaho senior and elementary education major, said she and her husband, Anthony, hoped to have children one day, but neither expected to become parents so soon.
“She was kind of a surprise,” Mayes said. “I mean, we were married for two years. We always knew we wanted kids, maybe not exactly in college, but she”s been a blessing ever since. I wouldn”t have it any other way.”
The couple, both Boise natives, met at the Idaho State Fair in 2012.
A little over a year later, as he drove home from a Valentine”s Day dinner, Anthony said he decided he was going to marry Mayes.
“I”m not a huge decision-maker. Huge decisions for me are terrible, I take a long time deciding them, but on Valentine”s Day, I went over to her house and she made a special dinner,” Mayes said. “While I was driving home that night, on the way back, I knew I was going to marry her.”
Anthony wanted to go into law enforcement and planned on attending the College of Southern Idaho. He and Mayes were prepared to maintain a long-distance relationship throughout college. After he proposed, however, Anthony said he decided to surprise his fiance and join the Vandal family instead. A brief time later, Chloe came along.
Chloe spends time with her babysitter on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Mayes said she and Anthony take turns watching the baby on Tuesdays and Thursdays as well as on days they are scheduled to work.
“I don”t have a lot of sleep,” Mayes said. “She still doesn”t sleep through the night and having to figure out how to balance spending time with her and doing homework is stressful.”
While balancing school, work and parenthood has been stressful, Mayes said she has received a tremendous amount of support from her professors.
“Professors here have been amazing. Honestly, there are so many of them I couldn”t have done this without,” Mayes said. “When my babysitter”s daughter is sick, my professors let me take Chloe to class with me. Or, this weekend, I was really sick, my husband and I both were, and my professor gave me an extension – those kinds of things.”
Mayes, a fourth generation Vandal, said she and Anthony love to dress Chloe up in Vandal gear and take her to football games and other university events.
“I think a lot of people think that I don”t have time to do anything else,” Mayes said. “I guess, like, I don”t have time to be a student and experience college, but being a mom doesn”t hinder me from doing that – I still get to go and do fun things, I just get another person to experience it with me.”
Mayes” father, Daniel Mattson, also experienced what it was like to be a student and a parent.
Mattson, who began school at the university in 1980, said his son, Rob, was born in November of his first fall semester.
“(Moscow) was a good place to have a young child,” Mattson said. “We would go swimming and went to all the basketball and football games together. Every once in a while, I would take him to class with me.”
Mattson said that while raising a child and completing a higher education at the same time is no easy task, it”s not impossible.
“I think one of the biggest things people perceive is that if you have a family, you can”t go to college,” Mattson said. “I think that with financial aid and everything, you can do it. You might have to work a little bit harder and you have to switch your time from family to school to work, but you can do it.”
Today, Anthony said common perceptions of student parents remain about the same.
“I guess people think you can”t have the normal college experience if you”re not single or sleeping around or whatever, but that”s sad and that”s not true,” Anthony said.
Although he and Mayes experience different challenges than the average student, Anthony said he has a partner who is there to support him and help him balance going to school and being a parent.
“The biggest thing is that we”re there for each other through everything,” Anthony said. “I can come home from classes, she can come home from work, we can sit and hang out with Chloe and play with her and talk about what went on throughout the day.”
Despite the challenges of raising a child in college, Mattson said he”s proud of his daughter for excelling as a mother and a college student.
“I”m really proud of Tiffany, you know she”s on the Dean”s List, I think she got a 4.0 last semester,” Mattson said. “I think she”s like me, she realizes how important it is to get an education so she can take care of her family in the future.”
When it comes to Chloe”s future, Mayes said she wants the best for her daughter.
“Obviously, it would be awesome if she went to U of I, but I mean, in general, I want her to find something that she loves and go to school for it,” Mayes said. “And knowing that, if she”s in my situation, she can do it, because she had a mom and a dad who did it. I think that”s my goal for her – knowing that she can do anything.”
While Mattson also hopes Chloe goes on to become a Vandal, he said he would love to see his granddaughter pursue her passions and receive a good education.
“I think having both her mom and dad be college graduates at some point, she”ll see the value of a college education,” Mattson said. “I hope she sees a good education will lead her to a good job and something she enjoys doing. I think it will be good for her to be with parents who have college degrees and, of course, I do hope she goes to the U of I.”
Corrin Bond can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @CorrBond