Putting Focus on Togetherness : Ideals: Parents work hard and juggle their schedules to give their children a good foundation, hoping that living here will shield them from some of society’s ills.

If the Cleavers of Hollywood were the idealized American family of the 1950s, the Beaudions of Camarillo in many ways represent Ventura County’s real life family of the ‘90s.

Parents--Liz and John, both 41--and daughters--Jennifer, 15, and Jessica, 13--are a nuclear family: a mom and dad still married and living with their children.

Such families make up one-third of all county households. And three-fourths of all local children live with two parents.

Both Liz and John Beaudion went to college and both work at engineering firms, he as an equipment manager and she as an administrative aide. Together they earn about $80,000 a year.

They own their own home, head a parents group at the local Boys & Girls Club and juggle their schedules so they can meet the needs of their children--and keep an eye on them.

The Beaudions are typical, too, because they joined a flood of migrants from the Los Angeles Basin in the 1980s--buying a tract house at the foot of a hill and enrolling their two daughters in a public school with a good reputation.

“We loved the area because it was a little countryish, and it seemed like a good place to raise kids,” Liz Beaudion said.

Seven years later, they are still sure they made the right move. But the Beaudions have learned how difficult it can be to raise youngsters in a society where morality is a moving target.

“My daughters have taken adolescence a little slower than they would have in Orange County,” Liz Beaudion said. “Yet they were exposed at an early age--much quicker than I was or my husband was--to the typical drugs, sex, gangs and everything else.”

Like many parents, the Beaudions say they have responded to this sliding scale of right and wrong by imposing their own strict rules.

“It’s a tough time to be a parent,” John Beaudion said. “But I’m trying to be a role model for my kids, so they can be responsible adults.”

For years, the two parents have sacrificed time with each other to make sure the girls can participate in sports and other activities. And they have adjusted their work schedules to make sure one parent is at home by 5 p.m. even though both children are now teen-agers.

One recent evening, the family gathered in its living room: parents, kids, fish, two cats, four baby bullfrogs and a big red dog.

And how is life in Ventura County?

“Fun,” said Jessica, who still plays competitive basketball.

“Boring,” said Jennifer, who spends her free time with friends, catching a tan or a movie and hanging out at shopping malls.

“It’s not such a rushed life,” the mother said.

“It’s a great place to live,” the father said.

In Decades to Come

The Beaudions may be typical of Ventura County today, but the Romo family of Oxnard surely will be just as representative in the decades to come.

During the 1980s, the county’s Latino population surged by nearly 64,000, or 57%--more than double the overall rate. And demographers say the county becomes more Latino every year.

The lives of Alicia and Moises Romo, both 34, are a version of the immigrants’ story, one defined by hard work, family ties and a budding financial success.

Alicia Romo arrived from Mexico in 1963 as a 2-year-old, Moises Romo in 1978 as a teen-ager. They married in 1983, and now both work in a chiropractor’s office, together earning about $33,000 a year. It is enough to raise five children and pay the mortgage on a five-bedroom home in a middle-class tract near Oxnard College.

Moises Romo also works as a part-time interpreter for a law firm.

But then, the family’s history in America is about work. Alicia Romo’s first job as a child was in the fields. And her mother, Olivia Chavez Caballero, was the first woman hired into a man’s position--more money, but heavy lifting--at an Oxnard packinghouse.

“They gave her real hard jobs to make her quit, but she took it,” Alicia recalled. “Sometimes when she came home her hands were so blistered she couldn’t even turn the wheel to park her car.” The mother also hustled work as a disc jockey at dances for a Spanish-language radio station and sold Shaklee cleaning products on the side.

“We used to live in a small, ugly house on A Street,” Alicia Romo said. “I was embarrassed. I said, ‘I want a house.’ Each year for six years she promised. When I was 12, we got a house.”

At age 51, Olivia now lives with her daughter and son-in-law in a new five-bedroom home. Alicia Romo’s 85-year-old grandmother--who had 20 children herself--lives with them, too.

Alicia’s oldest daughter, Mabel Vargas, went to work at 16, also in a chiropractor’s office. And her eldest son, Fernando Vargas, 17, has made a name for himself as the youngest amateur boxing champion in U.S. history. A two-time national titleholder, he is favored to make the 1996 U.S. Olympic team in the 139-pound division.

“Fernando saw amateur boxing on TV when he was 10,” Alicia Romo explained. “He said, ‘Take me to the gym.’ I said, ‘no.’ But he wouldn’t stop.” A younger son, Roger, 12, has trained to box since he was 6, and has fought competitively since he was 8.

“I want to try to get to the 2000 Olympics,” the seventh-grader said recently. “After my career, I’ll try to be a lawyer.”

But his grades have slipped and his father has threatened to send him to military school if things don’t improve.

“I’ll improve,” Roger said.

Alicia Romo, who dropped out of school pregnant two decades ago, wants nothing more than to see her children graduate from high school.

“I want them to go through the line, and buy them a ring and get them a diploma,” she said.

Fernando, a Channel Islands High School senior, hopes to be the first in his family to fulfill his parents’ dream.

“They want us to be better than they were,” he said, “to have a better life for ourselves.”

Single Parents

A registered nurse divorced for a decade, 33-year-old Cheri Mason has long had the career skills and domestic flexibility to raise her two children anywhere she wants.

She is one of more than 20,000 single parents--about 15,000 single mothers and about 5,200 unmarried fathers--who are raising about 34,000 of the county’s children--nearly one of every five.

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the choices I’ve made,” said Mason, who shares a rental that is 12 houses from the beach with daughter Adriean, 13, and son Gabriel, 10, in the Pierpont area of Ventura.

“Sometimes I think I should have gone to some Midwestern town and given them the rivers and creeks and horses,” Mason said. “But on the other hand, they had Little League and Girl Scouts, good schools and I don’t worry about their safety.

“In a lot of ways, it’s been a good childhood for them,” Mason said.

Adriean, an eighth-grader at Cabrillo Middle School, said she likes living in Ventura “because of the nice people. Like in church, they helped us out when we had trouble. . . . And I like to swim in the ocean and lay out on the beach.”

A San Diego native who arrived in 1980, Mason came to Ventura County temporarily, then married and stayed, settling with her husband in downtown Ventura.

“To me it was the ocean and fresh air, the museum and the park and thrift stores and the homeless. They were all part of its character,” Mason said.

After the divorce, she stayed in Ventura to give her children not only stability but a sense of growing up somewhere, a hometown.

Her biggest problem with the area, Mason said, has always been its cost. She makes about $36,000 a year working two jobs--as a full-time nurse at the county hospital and a part-time nurse at a laboratory.

But high Ventura rents--now $1,100 a month at her beach cottage--have drained her budget.

Despite the money crunch, or because of it, Mason and her children have spent much free time taking advantage of Ventura County’s natural blessings--walking the beaches and hiking backcountry canyons such as Matilija.

Adriean has played youth basketball, Gabriel kid baseball. And their mother has trained off the coast, paddling an outrigger canoe. Last summer, mother and daughter raced in the international outrigger canoe sprints in Western Samoa. “That cost a lot of overtime,” Mason said.

Though a Times Poll shows that many parents think simply living in Ventura County has helped build their children’s moral base, Mason thinks otherwise. Her children absorb the same electronic images in small-town Ventura as do kids nationwide.

Morality comes from the home, she said, and the most important thing is to let your child know you’re concerned.

“I wasn’t raised in a ‘Leave It to Beaver’ household, so I’m not surprised what the teen-age years still deal with,” she said. “Adriean’s 13 now, and I spend a lot of time talking with her.

“But all I can really hope for is to empower her to make choices,” the mother said, “and to make sure she knows she always has a place to come back to. I think that’s what parents give their kids.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Voices: Is Ventura County a good place to raise children?

“I think most of Ventura County is still like it used to be. It’s quiet. The schools are great. It’s safer. I really like the greenbelts. As my son will put it: ‘It’s like, a great area.’ ”

--Ann Roman, 45, of Westlake.

“Yes. I lived in the Valley before and this was a big change. Here people are more friendly. If feels like a quiet town. Everything is calm. I’ve learned to feel safe.”

--Kimberly Stead, 16, of Moorpark.

“It’s wonderful for kids. This is kind of a different place. People really are more trusting and friendly. They just have more time for each other, or they take more time for each other.”

--Jay Grigsby, 39, executive director, Boys & Girls Club of Camarillo.

“This is a great area for kids as far as options to the beach and mountains. But it is getting worse as far as these people coming from L.A. and the drug scene. They’re having an overpowering influence over the children raised here.”

--Moses Enriquez, 35, of Oxnard.