“I’ve stayed til’ 6a.m. before… went home, saw the kids off to school, and came back to La Salle,” were the words of Junior, Ashley Moragne, as she was explaining her time as a student.
Moragne, 32, is also known as a supermom. Being a wife and a mother of three, she manages her time to successfully be a full-time mother and wife along with being a full-time student at La Salle University. “I don’t know how I do it,” Moragne said. At 6:30a.m. she gets her kids ready for their morning routines and then she sends them off to school. After catching two trains and a bus to get to La Salle she begins her school day. She makes sure she coordinates her schedule so that while she’s in class her children are attending school as well. When classes are done for the day, and while Moragne is commuting home, her husband is there to pick up the children from the school bus. “When I get home, we talk about our days, have dinner, then I make sure they have their homework completed before I begin mine. I will work on my homework for a couple hours, take a nap and then work on more homework,” Moragne revealed. After her homework is done she goes to bed only to get four hours of sleep before she has to wake up for the next day.
College was always a goal in Moragne’s future out of high school. After becoming pregnant with her first son, Moragne says “I had to be an ‘adult’.” My wants (education) had to go on the back burner and I thought I had to go into the work field and take care of my responsibilities. I did not know that I could be a parent and go to school… working at that time was my only option, so I thought.”
The decision she made to go back to school was one that her and her husband thought of together. “I was sitting home critiquing a commercial and my husband suggested I got back to school for advertising,” Moragne said. When that idea began to manifest, and she knew it was tangible, she decided to go back. I was out of school for almost 10 years,” Moragne recounted. After all she hadn’t been in school for so long. At first, she attended community college as a stepping stone to regain her confidence and worked her way to be accepted at La Salle University where she continues her education in public relations.
Although she is back at school, mothering does not take a back seat as Moragne makes sure to divide her time up equally among her three children. “At times if I dedicate too much to school, then I may lack in parenting or attention to their wants. Also, my patience has thinned but I try my best to multi-manage, give attention to them when my work load is light and what is most important is I dedicate time to family outings. I’ve carved out time to give them their special treatment…. each one has their individual time,” Moragne describes.
Cleary, Moragne is a supermom by juggling her school work while checking her kid’s homework, and devoting family time but it must be hard, right? Moragne knows it is hard but she knows it will pay off in the end. She says, “That aside from relying on the support from family and close friends, I seek additional guidance and perseverance from God. My strength is limited but with prayer the Lord fills in those gaps that I am unable to fill. I spend a lot of nights self-reflecting, re-examining my goals and learning to submit to God’s will over my life. If it were not for my relationship with God, I would be lost.”
Keeping faith in mind, Moragne’s will to finish school and get a degree is inspiring to the student body at La Salle and she really shows that anything is possible…. Showing us that not all heroes wear capes. Some are just supermoms.