All for her kids

Tabitha Needham works tirelessly to give her children a better life

By California State University, Bakersfield

July 9^th, 2020

Editor’s note: This is the latest in a series of stories about the CSUB Alumni Association’s 2020-2021 alumni scholarship recipients, awarded to CSUB grads pursuing their graduate degree on campus.

While in grad school, Tabitha Needham typically works a 5 a.m.-to-2 p.m. shift at Walmart, with a lunch break in between to see her 3-year-old son, Erik.

On nights she has class, she comes home from work, gets a little schoolwork done and spends time with Erik before heading to CSUB, where she is until 8:30 p.m.

Needham writes her papers during nights she doesn’t have class. Her ex-husband’s sister lives with her and helps out.

It’s a punishing schedule, but really nothing new for Needham. She says she’s been working since age 9 when she mowed lawns, cleaned storage units and worked as a mechanic’s assistant because she had to pay for many of her own necessities.

“I do it to give my kids a better life,” said Needham, who had a baby girl, Jolyne, in March.

Needham is studying to be a teacher, first in high school and eventually college. She earned bachelor’s degrees in English and history from CSUB in 2017 and now is working on her master’s in English.

She wants to prepare high schoolers for college better than she thinks they are being prepared now.

But above all, Needham says she wants to give Erik and Jolyne a better life than she had growing up in Oildale exposed to drugs and abuse and sometimes missing school because her parents couldn’t afford required school uniforms.

Through it all, she says, school was her refuge.

“I loved school. I loved being in it because that’s where I was safe,” Needham said.

Needham graduated from West High School and afterward juggled working for a storage company and attending Bakersfield College, where she earned associate’s degrees in history and English in 2013.

That fall she transferred to CSUB and continued to pursue degrees in both subjects, plus a minor in anthropology, She believes it’s important to have deep knowledge of all three subjects to understand each one well enough to teach it.

“How can I call myself a historian without having that literature and writing background?” she said.

“I loved school. I loved being in it because that’s where I was safe."

In school she’s absolutely “brilliant,” said onetime classmate and now friend Crystal Nevarez. The two became friends when Needham, exhausted from an overnight work shift, would sometimes be late for morning class and need to borrow class notes.

Over time Needham reciprocated, proofreading Nevarez’s papers.

Needham is so bright that she could get off work at 6 a.m., quickly write a paper, turn it in by 10 a.m. and get an A, Nevarez said.

“That’s how brilliant she is,” Nevarez said.

Seven days before she was scheduled to walk the commencement stage, Needham gave birth to Erik. He was later diagnosed as non-verbal autistic. He doesn’t talk or eat most solid foods; he doesn’t like anything gooey, cold or wet.

He’s “the best thing that ever happened to me,” Needham said.

“He’s just so happy all the time,” she said. “Every day he’s extremely excited, and even when he goes through his moods and he’s screaming and hitting himself, by the end of it he’s back to himself.

“Sometimes you can hear the screeching in the background. He’s playing on his tablet.”

Needham even enjoys having to watch his favorite movies over and over, like Hercules and Coco. She threw him Hercules- and Coco-themed birthday parties to incorporate the things he loves into his everyday life.

She worries Erik’s autism is genetic and that it will pass on to Jolyne, who was born premature at the beginning of the pandemic. But so far there are no signs that it has.

“At just three months she’s already babbling and making noises,” Needham said, “something my son wasn’t doing until he was 2.”

Needham is now looking forward to substitute teaching in the fall to get classroom experience, although she doesn’t quite know what that will look like because of the pandemic. When her baby bonding leave is up, she’ll also return to work at Walmart, where she shops for customers who put in online orders.

Yes, you read that right. Needham will add substitute teaching to her schedule of work at Walmart, evening graduate school classes at CSUB and, now, being a mom of two.