EVERY PARENT looks forward to the news that their child is following in their footsteps. So when 19-year-old Sedia Jackman called her mother Todne and told her that she would be the 2011 Banks Calendar Girl, her mother was simply thrilled. After all, years earlier Todne herself had earned national fame and recognition as the 1989 Calendar Banks Girl herself.
“When Sedia called me and told me she got through to do the Banks calendar, I actually cried,” her mother said. “I know she does the modelling and stuff, but I was so happy and emotional to think that I did it and she can come and do it now. She did a great job.”
While Todne credits herself as being a parent who doesn’t pressure or even gently nudge her children about their career path, she was thrilled that Sedia would be doing the Banks calendar.
“The year I did Banks I did Cockspur as well,” said Todne.
“I got called for the interview,” Sedia said. “But I had never thought of doing it before.”
Like her mother and father who had modelled locally throughout Barbados, Sedia longs to take up modelling professionally as a career.
“Being on the runway is actually a lot of fun, but before I hit the stage I’m always nervous,” she said. “But once I’m on the runway I’m good.”
Sedia, who has a number of fashion shows under her belt, including BB Fashion Week, the Sandy Lane Charitable Trust and the Absolut Caribbean Fashion Show, stands a willowy 5 feet 11 ½ inches tall. The former Queen’s College and Barbados Community College student, who has the benefits of her mother’s DNA to credit her good looks, is banking on capturing fame and fortune as an international model.
“I always grew up hearing that my mother and father used to model and that my daddy was this fashion person and the Marshall Trading guy. Everyone up to now still asks me if he is my dad,” she said. “But when I was in secondary school that was when I started taking modelling seriously. My dad is pretty proud of it all.”
While Sedia’s genes may be the ticket to her success, they seem to run through the family to Todne’s other three children as well. Todne is the mother of three others, nine-year-old Alpha Jackman Jr, five-year-old Christopher and three-year-old Skyy. She and her husband Alpha Jackman are doing a tremendous balancing act of raising four children.
Todne, who loves her family life, admits that it is a balancing act. “Sometimes it can be a lot, because Alpha and I are both working in the hotel industry, so we have to deal with the pickups and drop-offs and he travels a lot, and then I come home have to cook dinner, deal with the kids and then prepare for the next day,” Todne says. “I cook every day for my family because I like to know they are well fed.”
Todne, who also credits Sedia with helping out with her sisters and brothers, says that she stops short of making her daughter stand in as a babysitter.
“Sedia is very good with her sisters and brothers, but I don’t make her watch them all the time. If there is someplace that we have to go I would call a sitter first, or Alpha would go and I would stay home.”
Todne, who basks in the glow of motherhood and could even be a poster child for women looking great after giving birth, feels being a mother has really enhanced her life.
“Motherhood has taught me responsibility, resourcefulness and even sacrifice,” she said. “Every child has a different personality but you have to balance them all. But I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Todne revealed that she refused promotions because she knew that they would infringe upon her time with her children and she didn’t want that.
“My family is very important to me; it embodies everything that I am, so I don’t mind making the sacrifices now for them,” she said.
