I am a single mom of two boys, currently I'm a 3rd year medical student. I got divorced, and then went to undergrad - my youngest was 2 when I started undergrad and my oldest was 8. I did NOT work full-time through undergrad, instead, I worked 20 hours a week as a work study on campus which allowed me to have a work schedule that was very flexible around my classes, research, volunteer hours and shadowing. It also allowed me to be a mom to my boys easier. I took an average of 20 credit hours a semester.
I was lucky, in a way, that I didn't have to study all through undergrad - the pre-reqs, other classes and the MCAT just came together easily for me. I did study for organic chem 1 - as it was my hardest class in undergrad. However, the draw back to that was I never built good study habits for myself until I was in medical school - which was a problem at the beginning of medical school. As a result, I had a rocky start to undergrad (I got an 86 in anatomy because I simply didn't know how to study). So, my recommendation as far as studying goes is this -- obviously, if something comes easy to you, you won't need to study as much, but still figure out how you study best.
Time management is going to be the biggest issue for someone with a family, whether there is a spouse or not. Balancing a family and school isn't always easy - but, you CAN do it. Now that I'm in medical school, I find that I study primarily once my children are asleep - which has meant a lot of very late nights. It's not always a matter of the number of hours you put it - rather, the quality of the hours you put in. Study smart, study efficiently. Being able to pick out the important information is a major part of efficient studying. Often there is a lot of detail, that, frankly, isn't important - that true in both undergrad and medical school. Then, there are other times that the detail is what is important. Being able to recognize when the detail is important and when it's not is a major part of studying.
A basic example: If you are taking anatomy as part of your undergrad - which could help you in med school - learn things by compartments. The anterior compartment of the arm is the flexor compartment, meaning that it's main action is flexion. All the muscles are innervated by the musculocutaneous nerve from the 5th, 6th & 7th cervical spinal nerves. The muscles are biceps brachii, brachialis, and coracobrachialis. This is much easier than trying to memorize each muscle individually. Most of anatomy can be done in some form of grouping.
