Mom, student, influencer… At 18, Clara is already many things.
“The mental load is immense.
And sometimes, I'm overwhelmed,” the young woman admits realistically, her face youthful but composed, framed by straight brown hair.
Almost a year ago, last March, she gave birth to her daughter, Lise, on the day of the baccalaureate specialty exams.
A deliberate and thoughtful pregnancy, with her daughter's father, Arthur, who is raising her with her.
“From a very young age I had a deep desire for motherhood.
I saw myself from final year or at the start of studies with a child,” she relates.
In France, around 1.2% of students become parents during their studies, according to a study by the Observatory of Student Life (OVE) dating from 2016. That is, several tens of thousands of young people each year.
Some choose to continue their studies, not without difficulty.
And others don't.
The university still has a way to go to adapt to the path of young parents.
On the importance of family support
After the baccalaureate and the arrival of Lise, studies were not an obvious choice for Clara.
“Except that for my mother it was obligatory, even more so with a child,” she explains.
Today, the young woman combines her daily life as a young mother, her activity as a content creator on the networks, which, with her more than 430,000 subscribers on TikTok, provides her with an income and her L1 in psychology in Toulouse, which she chose to perform remotely.
“My sisters and my mother are very present”
Clara, L1 student and mother of Lise, 1 year old
“It was obvious to be as much as possible with my daughter, who only goes to the nanny three days a week,” she says.
A life regulated like clockwork, which the young woman would not have chosen without being certain of the support of her family, with whom she still lives in exchange for rent.
“My sisters and my mother are very supportive, that’s what allows me to do everything.
»
It was also family support that decided Amina Khelil, ten years ago, to have a child.
Now founder and director of the mathematics tutoring company D-PhiAlpha, she was in her third year of a master's degree in fundamental physics at Orsay when she gave birth to her first daughter, Nour.
“At 19, I was married to the right person and I wanted children.
It was out of the question for me to ignore my studies.
But when my in-laws told me that they would be there for support, I did not hesitate,” she says today.
An essential presence, which does not spare him from particularly difficult moments.
“One day, when I was pregnant, as I often do, I felt unwell when entering a partial course in astrophysics.
I got up and went to compose.
I had no choice if I wanted to validate my year,” she recalls.
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Every morning and every evening, including during her pregnancy, Amina takes the RER B from Drancy to Orsay for an hour and forty-five to get to class.
She does not regret these ordeals.
“When it was hard, I spoke to Nour who I felt moving in my stomach.
During my exams, I told him “we’ll get there!”
» I felt like I was never alone.
I knew that I was doing all this for me, but also for her,” she says, her voice moved.
It is through discipline and a few sacrifices that the young mother juggles between these two lives.
She gives birth in July.
As of September, she is back at university.
“Having a child forced me to be very efficient in my work.
I didn't go out like the others after classes, I came home to take care of my daughter and study,” she says.
Support “at the discretion of the establishments”
The pace is all the more difficult to cope with as there are not always measures planned by universities to adjust full-time study courses to the pace of young parents, explains Aiden Gaide, lecturer in sociology at the University of Tours, author in 2020 of a thesis on student parents.
“Since around 2017, the special study regimes (RSE) put in place by the ministry have theoretically allowed pregnant students to benefit from accommodations: a different attendance rate, the possibility of choosing their tutorial schedules as a priority, sometimes to do your year in 2 years…” he explains.
“But in reality, it’s much more complicated.
This only applies to universities, not private schools.
And there is no means available, no control,” he continues.
“Ultimately, adaptation depends on the goodwill of management teams and teachers, who can make their lives both easier and harder.”
“Crèches at universities tend to be abolished”
Aiden Gaide, author of a thesis on student parents
When Amina wins the entrance exam for the National School of Arts and Crafts (ENAM), she has to manage to find an emergency place in a nursery in the Paris region.
Because if certain public higher education establishments have them, such as the universities of Caen, Lyon, Dijon, Bordeaux, Rennes, Toulouse or even Jussieu in Paris, nothing obliges them to do so.
“In reality these crèches do not come from recent policies” explains Aiden Gaide.
“They are a reminiscence of the achievements of May 1968, and have rather tended to be suppressed since with budget restrictions in universities,” he continues.
“Deep down, I knew that the choice to have a baby was going to be incompatible with these studies”
Samuel Clot experienced this lack of consideration of students' personal lives first-hand during his medical studies at the age of 21.
His son Gaspard born during his third year, which he repeated after the pregnancy of his wife Léa, the creator of “I'm not pretty” content on social networks.
“I went to the school administration in advance to discuss taking several weeks of paternity leave.
They laughed, telling me: but there are no changes to the lessons planned!
», remembers the young man.
While he is expected on an internship at the hospital the day after Léa's delivery, he unilaterally decides to take three weeks off.
“I wanted to be present for our son and Léa in the postpartum period,” smiles Samuel, now a content creator whose book “Stay-at-home father, how positive parenting changed my life?”
» was published on January 24.
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When he returns to college, he has a lot of catching up to do.
“Deep down, I knew that the choice to have a baby was going to be incompatible with these studies.
But I had suffered too much for this competition, and for these first years of medicine to give up,” he says.
But the workload is piling up.
“I had classes in the morning, training in the afternoon, I gave tutoring lessons at lunchtime or in the evening.
It became unbearable,” he remembers.
A lack of suitable measures which pushes him, to his delight, to make a radical decision as the end-of-year exams approach.
“The question was: stop medicine yes, but to do what?
The answer struck me straight away: it was being a stay-at-home father, rather than having to pay someone to look after our son.
Financially it made sense for us, and it made me much happier.
I remember the release when I sent the email to the university administration,” he laughs today.
“The university should take more into account the family life of students”
Samuel Clot, former medical student and father of Gaspard
If the choice was happy for Samuel, he remembers comrades for whom the decision was much less so.
“I met young women who left medical school after 5 or 6 years of study, because there was no accommodation for their pregnancy.
They had been qualified and trained, for nothing,” he says.
“The university should take more into account the family life of students, as companies do.
For example, by authorizing parental leave.
By creating truly well-designed courses,” he advocates.
For Samuel, however, this decision was far from being an abandonment: six years later, he inquired about returning to study, “probably around teaching”.