Married with children and at FSC: an inside look at Steven Lopez
Alexandra Gauthier
Issue date: 4/4/08 Section: News
Unlike many college guys, Steven Lopez doesn't fritter away his evenings goofing off with his buddies. Instead of shooting the breeze with his peers, Steven spends his nights calming frazzled insurance customers. When this student is up until four in the morning, he's more likely to be rocking one of his children to sleep than to be out partying. Steven has no time to watch football games - instead, he runs daily interference for his wife.
While juggling a wife, three children, a 25-hour workweek and a full college course load, Steven hardly has time to do his laundry, let alone to hang out with his friends.
This soon-to-be college graduate certainly stands out among his peers - the thickly-bearded, opera-loving history major is 32 years old, and has already served his country, toured Europe and even taught high-schoolers. Yet he's no superhuman; Steven still worries about his finals, argues with his parents, and, last month, even lost his wallet.
"That was stupid, stupid," he declared, pounding the table for emphasis. "I just felt stupid, losing a wallet at 32."
But in the scheme of things, Steven admits that losing a wallet is not that big of a deal. His life has been a whirlwind of activity and stress, in which losing a wallet is just one more incident to deal with, ever since his wife got pregnant just months before their wedding date seven years ago.
"Haeley was the proverbial mistake," he says. "We were planning our wedding and it just happened."
After his then-fiancée had been sick for a few days, he says it just struck him that maybe she was pregnant. He went out and bought three different types of pregnancy tests, and they were all positive. Even then, the gravity of the situation did not strike him for a long time; rather, all he could think about was how to tell their parents.
"My parents thought we were done, education over. Now, here I am, about to graduate, going to get a masters and Ph.D," he says. "It will take a long time…but I don't care. I'm going to do it."
While juggling a wife, three children, a 25-hour workweek and a full college course load, Steven hardly has time to do his laundry, let alone to hang out with his friends.
This soon-to-be college graduate certainly stands out among his peers - the thickly-bearded, opera-loving history major is 32 years old, and has already served his country, toured Europe and even taught high-schoolers. Yet he's no superhuman; Steven still worries about his finals, argues with his parents, and, last month, even lost his wallet.
"That was stupid, stupid," he declared, pounding the table for emphasis. "I just felt stupid, losing a wallet at 32."
But in the scheme of things, Steven admits that losing a wallet is not that big of a deal. His life has been a whirlwind of activity and stress, in which losing a wallet is just one more incident to deal with, ever since his wife got pregnant just months before their wedding date seven years ago.
"Haeley was the proverbial mistake," he says. "We were planning our wedding and it just happened."
After his then-fiancée had been sick for a few days, he says it just struck him that maybe she was pregnant. He went out and bought three different types of pregnancy tests, and they were all positive. Even then, the gravity of the situation did not strike him for a long time; rather, all he could think about was how to tell their parents.
"My parents thought we were done, education over. Now, here I am, about to graduate, going to get a masters and Ph.D," he says. "It will take a long time…but I don't care. I'm going to do it."
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