She Is Mom, Home and Away
A training officer for the County Probation Dept., Helena McCrimmon presents an overview of training at West L.A. College for new hires. Officially, she is a Senior Detention Services Officer, juvenile division. This suggests she has had plenty of opportunities to polish her mom talents even when she was at work. The future shines more brightly than the present. In her 17th year with the County, Ms. McCrimmon’s blueprint calls for her to retire after 20 years, then team up, formally, with her son, closing the circle on their life together. “We want to give back to the community,” she says. Her son, a very good student, is a prospective business major. The family vision is for the two of them to work together in a group home setting. Mr. Holmes would aid troubled youths along their path to recovery.
The Birth of a Plan
Rare is the parent — mother, father, single, married, poor, rich, old, young — who has carefully designed a day-by-day plan for child-raising from the moment of birth. This is Helena McCrimmon’s story as much as it is the tale of Deshawn Holmes, about a loving, interlacing relationship in which each has prospered by enriching the other.
Long before she became pregnant, Ms. McCrimmon had formed a values template. She knew the values she wanted to raise her child with, the same ones her mother had taught her. “The primary values I wanted to give Deshawn,” she said, “were honesty, respect, determination. They had been embedded within me by my mother, a single parent, when I was growing up a few miles from here. I am the eldest of 3 girls.” It is exciting, Ms. McCrimmon said, to take one step back and see the values learned from her mother, including ethical behavior and integrity, manifest themselves in her own son.
It Was Up to the Women
Going back generations, it seems child-rearing in Ms. McCrimmon’s family always reposed on the strong minds and shoulders of the women. Her mother was brought up in Taylor, Texas, just east of Austin, by her great-grandmother, and she was a deeply committed member of the Baptist church. The narrative returned to Ms. McCrimmon’s childhood. Her mother is her hero for never wavering. “My mother,” she said, firmly, “was a strong black woman. She never allowed herself to be beaten down by derogatory statements. She was a driving force. She was so dedicated to her children, making sure that we were clothed, fed, taken care of, before thinking about herself.” Merely by being a child in Los Angeles, Ms. McCrimmon had an advantage over her mother’s upbringing. Back in Texas, her mother was not allowed to attend school, at a certain point, she said, because there was cotton to be picked. “I have always been a child to have high respect for her for what she did for us,” Ms. McCrimmon said.
First in Line
Her mother, her model for parenting, was very unlike modern moms. “She was different from today because of her commitment to always put her children first,” Ms. McCrimmon said. “Most parents say the children come first. But they don’t follow through. Why not? I think many don’t understand what being a parent means, what your duties are, what your job is, what your calling is. Once you have been blessed to have a child, now it is your job to ensure that he is equipped with the skills, the tools to build whatever he wants — as long as the foundation is set. That is where my mother was so good. She set the tone, she built the foundation for you to be educated, to get a job, to do the work.”
All in the Family
Armed with a clear vision of precisely the kind of mother she intended to be, Ms. McCrimmon was asked if motherhood turned out the way she had projected it. “No,” she replied pretty quickly. “That was an experience. Hmmm.” Within a fortnight of Deshawn’s birth, she became a single mom when her husband disappeared. “Being left alone to rear this child came as a surprise,” she recalls 18 years later, almost to the day. “This was not my expectation. I knew there was no way he was coming back after what he did with his life. He went on and started another family.” The departure was one of two devastating jolts. The new mother also was making a career change, entering the Probation Dept. Deprived of a partner to help raise their child, Ms. McCrimmon had to begin figuring out a whirlwind of decisions and adjustments on the fly. It was not as if Deshawn could be put on hold until she decided what to do.
The story of how Helena McCrimmon — and Deshawn — adapted to their new status will be concluded on Wednesday.
