Mommie Dearest by Christina Crawford

Author:Christina Crawford
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504049085
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2017-10-05T04:00:00+00:00

REFLECTIONS FROM NICKI BAILEY

Tina was fourteen when I met her at Chadwick School. She was an overweight tenth-grader who excelled academically but was very unsure of herself as a person. I was a young physical education teacher on my first assignment, fresh out of, UCLA and I wanted to help Tina because she seemed so sad and unrealized and because I liked her as a person.

She was bright, hard-working and seeking approval in a family-like structure, which she considered “home”. Through her physical education classes, she demonstrated good swimming ability and I convinced her to join the swim team. She proved to be very coachable, a beautiful performer and she found friendship among the girls on the squad who became her support system. This gave her a sense of belonging and acceptance.

She won her swim events in competition several times and for her it was a new and heady feeling! A sense of self-worth began to surface. She had never before been a winner!

I remember a time when Tina’s mother took nearly all her clothes away because of a disagreement and Tina was left with almost nothing to wear to school. She had to “make do” with whatever we could collect until she could regain her own things. Through all of this difficulty, Tina maintained great dignity.

Her status as a valued member of the school community increased greatly when she performed the lead in a school production of Mikado before students and parents one evening. She was brilliant and her star was shining brightly that night until her mother, who was in attendance, crushed its glow. It was a private moment which occurred between Tina, her mother and me. Happily, no one else knew of this as she received countless congratulations from an admiring audience on her acting and singing performance. You see, I made the mistake of raving to Miss Crawford about Tina’s presentation, remarking that she, Joan Crawford, must be terribly proud of her daughter, at which point she turned her back to me and there was absolute silence. However, from that time on we all knew that Tina had come to the realization that she was loved, accepted and very much respected by her teachers and her peers because of her achievements.

Nicki Bailey, M.A.

Former Chadwick faculty member;

Retired athletic coach, El Camino College

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