File this under “Hindsight is at least better than total blindness”.

Looking back I wrongly believed in a peculiar lassez-faire pirate style of parenting, personal responsibility and self governance. Apparently I also modeled a pirate ship type of democratic socialism along with an ADHD authoritarian leadership (myself). In a way the symbolic ship’s motto was “do as you want but you better figure out what works and what doesn’t and dont be surprised if the Pirate Captain eventually focuses enough to see what you’re doing (or not doing) or even worse what you are hiding and lying about and then gets really pissed off and blows his CaptCliff stack”.

Of course, my unique parenting approach was shaped by my own sheltered suburban Chicago childhood (like real pirate Captain William Kidd) and my Baby Boomer generation’s condescending pseudo-hippie view about our decidedly non-pirate Jewish parents including their more strait-laced traditional values, often inconsistent mood driven methods of discipline and general tendency to hover, judge or attempt to control us. In hindsight my parents didn’t really do any of those things once I went away to college but it sounded good to my “Rebel Without A Cause” self-narrative. Regardless, my free-wheeling ADHD preference (or predisposition) for living life last minute, disorganized, mostly unplanned and by trial and error (versus silly things like planning ahead, being organized and seeking professional help and consultation) combined with a far more insidious subconscious agenda of “maybe somebody else (like my parents) will do this for me or at least help pay for it.” Looking back on it that’s a pretty spoiled and twisted thought process and high entitlement mindset. No wonder I hated Joffrey Baratheon the jerky careless swaggering Prince so much in Game of Thrones….

The relative absence of core values and beliefs about personal accountability, healthy independence, and established (fully internalized) sense of responsibility later morphed into the aforementioned divorced Disney Dad with an inconsistent pirate parenting approach but one with its own set of mixed toxic messages. On the surface it seemed like all fun and games and treasure hunts punctuated occasionally by “what the fuck!!, why the hell did u do THAT??” or “what the fuck why the holy hell haven’t you taken care of that yet !!??”. To make matters worse after my ex-wife died this also included reflexive over functioning, over-doing , and “rescue parenting” on my part based on my deep love and equally deep guilt, anxiety, and fear about my childrens collective trauma. This was partially related to my often contentious and combative Narcissist versus Borderline divorce followed by them losing their mother only a year later to Stage 4 lung cancer. Such a recipe for lifelong guilt, remorse and regret not only was about my sons and my perceived failure as a father but also about all my accumulated emotional baggage and “pain body” of emotions, ie. loss, hurt, guilt, frustration, anger and unprocessed trauma going as far back as Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine (Rocky and Bullwinkle Show) or Rod Taylor’s time machine (the original 1960 movie) could take me in my always connected quantum entangled childhood to present day Cliff self.

Together all of these different factors and toxic ingredients represented an unwitting recipe for family enmeshment, codependency and a general lack of boundaries that most likely blurred and blunted my three sons personal autonomy, individual identity formation and healthy separation/individuation as well as undermined my late in life /ballgame efforts to finally promote clear and reasonable expectations of age-appropriate accountability, family rules, responsibility and prosocial “learn how to get along” behavior. Finally, the damaged ghost ship I presided over also ended up blurring my own sense of “deservingness”meaning feeling truly deserving of longterm happiness and self respect including my right to assert myself and my individual needs, wants and desires , set limits with others and be willing and able to say, “No absolutely not!” to many things and to many other people besides my children and to do so with consistency, confidence, love, healthy reasoning and positive intention and with no sword, musket or pirate ship in sight.