Unconventional Wisdom

In some ways, the young family of Kadu Lennox and Katrina Rivers is the picture of convention.

They have two kids. A girl and a boy. They own a beautiful bungalow in Silver Lake. Out back, there’s a wooden swing set as big as a rental truck and a handful of orange, grapefruit and fig trees.

The family car is a Volvo. Dad, 29, is handy with tools. Mom, 32, works but loves to cook and garden. The 4-year-old girl is in preschool and likes Disney’s “Little Mermaid.” The 18-month-old boy loves to follow his sister around the house.

And like most parents, they worry whether one of the world’s largest cities is the best place to raise their children.

“Los Angeles is not good for kids,” said Katrina, who is English-born and Cambridge-educated. “There’s too much materialism, and it’s always in your face. I want my kids to be able to ride their bikes down the street or ride the subway train to a friend’s house without me having to worry. I’d never, ever let either of my kids do that here.”

But before you assume they tune in weekly to Jerry Falwell, consider their unconventional side.

Kadu and Katrina are married, but they wed a couple years after their first child was born. They wrote their own ceremony.

“In the Sufi tradition, we repeated our vows three times. Once for the head, once for the heart and once for the soul,” said Katrina, referring to the mystical Muslim practice.

A couple of months ago, the family hired a ghost buster to expel a spirit from their house. A shaman who lives down the street confirmed its existence, and a psychic said the ghost was there to “wreak havoc with relationships and love.”

A couple weeks ago, a feng shui expert told them their newly painted red door was a big mistake. Bad energy. The diagnosis made sense because when the door went red, Lennox’s phone calls, which he depends upon for his acting career, went dry for the first time in nine years. They stripped the paint from the door, and the calls started coming in again.

Yep, Falwell definitely wouldn’t nominate this bunch for the Moral Majority Hall of Fame. But, in a sense, rising above the judgments of others is what their family is about. They are committed to marching to their individual drummers--together.

To live the life they have, and the one they intend to, has meant being comfortable with being different. Comfortable with having one foot in the mainstream and the other, well, wherever their hearts take them.

For everyone, except possibly Katrina, they were first put upon the road less traveled by their names. Kadu. Now, there’s a name you don’t see every day, especially attached to a guy more than 6 feet tall with an Irish Catholic background. Where did that come from?

When Kadu was 6 months old, his mother kept hearing people talk about an Indian guru. His mother, who once wanted to be a nun but adopted a counterculture lifestyle, took it as a sign.

She and Kadu left their home in Philadelphia for India, where his mother tracked down the guru. He gave Kadu his name, which in Hindi is a term of endearment. A fair translation would be “pumpkin.”

Katrina isn’t exactly a common name, but not so unusual either. Yet, she’s experienced at straddling two worlds as well. Katrina’s mother is American, her father is English. Her mother left California for England to attend finishing school and never returned.

Decades later, Katrina reversed her mother’s path. She left England with a degree in English literature and headed for adventure in the New World. Eventually, she landed a job at Zoetrope Studios as an assistant to a producer. She meant to go back home, but her life is here now.

“My mother always thought I should be reading the news on BBC 1,” said Katrina, with a laugh. Katrina now writes treatments for commercials.

Because of their unusual backgrounds, Kadu and Katrina wanted to give their children distinctive names. Both draw upon Katrina’s rich knowledge of Latin. Their 4-year-old daughter is Adea, which means “goddess.” She was born on a Sunday, Dec. 3, referred to as “the day of the goddess,” Katrina said.

Their 18-month-old son’s name is Lux, which means light. He went through nearly half a dozen names, including Mars and Rivers, before they settled on Lux.

“Lux just suited him,” Katrina explained..

Names are one thing, but actions ultimately define us. In describing the career ambitions of the parents, a dirty word must be used--aspiring. Kadu is an aspiring actor and Katrina is an aspiring screenwriter.

“It’s tough to be a wannabe,” said Kadu, who earns half his living from small acting and commercial roles and the other half from working for prop companies. “I look forward to acting, but I don’t weigh my life on it. It’s there, and I’m doing it, and I love it.”

Adds Katrina: “To admit you’re an actor is like admitting you’re an alcoholic. There’s such a stigma.”

Aspiring screenwriters aren’t much higher on Hollywood’s evolutionary scale, but Katrina has a script circulating that may erase “aspiring” from her resume. Katrina, whose favorite films include “Rosemary’s Baby,” said the screenplay is a tragic love story and leaves it at that.

“Some names are looking at it,” she said. “It may get made into a movie. It’s very exciting.”

As for their children, the parents say they will try to resist saddling them with heavy career expectations.

“The challenge is to see who your kids are and then to let them be who they are,” Katrina said. “But you also have to give them a direction that will allow them to function in this world. You’ve got to have discipline, you’ve got to have rules. Otherwise, they are going to be atrocious.”

But when your parents and your neighborhood are all “in the business,” it’s inevitable that the children will be swept up into it. Everyone in the family has been featured in a commercial. Not long ago, little Lux appeared in an advertisement for Saab.

Before that, Mom, Dad and Adea all starred in a television commercial for the Oldsmobile Alero. There they were a regular General Motors kind of family headed down the road to a happy future.

“We were just driving and smiling,” said Katrina of the one-day shoot. “It was fun.”

Like any family, it hasn’t been all smiles and laughs. Apart from the malicious ghost in their house, they’ve had their trials. The important thing, they say, is to learn from them.

A memorable example was the inflatable birthing pool purchased for the at-home delivery of their first child, Adea. During the critical moments before birth, the pool sprang several air leaks. This meant that Kadu was trying to attend to his wife while simultaneously trying to keep the pool inflated.

“I was like, ‘Do you need anything? Are you all right?’ and she said she needed water,” said Kadu, whose three-day stint on “General Hospital” didn’t help much when it came to home births. “I’d come back with the water and then have to really start pumping again.”

The pool did its job (although they got a sturdier one the next time), and Adea made them a family of three.

Although much of their livelihood depends upon television, the family has strict limits for viewing. Adea can watch only one video a week. The policy developed after too many nights of Adea eating supper and “zoning out” in front of the tube. The parents felt the television was stunting Adea’s spirit.

A change had to be made.

“I told Adea I made a mistake,” Katrina said. Within a week of the new policy, Adea’s imagination blossomed again, her parents note.

The parental move, too, was motivated by a need to protect their young children. The parents want to foster resourcefulness, creativity and imagination.

“Today there is so much emphasis on growing up fast. It starts with, ‘My kid knows their ABCs,’ then it’s, ‘My kid can spell.’ Pretty soon, it’s going to be, ‘My kid has a job,’ ” Katrina said. “Childhood is short, and it should be preserved as long as possible.”