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 upbringing (like real pirate Captain William Kidd) and my Baby Boomer generation condescending pseudo-hippie condescending view about my decidedly non-pirate Jewish parents including their more strait-laced traditional values, inconsistent mood driven methods of discipline and general tendency to hover, judge and/or attempt to control me. In hindsight they didn’t really do any of those things once I went away to college but it sounded good to my “Over-entitled 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 actually help pay for it.” Looking back on it that’s a pretty twisted thought process and hyper-entitlement mindset. No wonder I hated Joffrey Baratheon so much in Game of Thrones….

The relative absence of core values and beliefs about personal accountability, healthy independence, and established (internalized) sense of responsibility later morphed into the aforementioned divorced Disney Dad with a highly inconsistent pirate parenting approach but one with its own set of mixed 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 anxiety, fear and guilt about my childrens collective trauma. This was related to my contentious and combative Narcissist PD versus Borderline PD divorce followed by them losing their mother only a year later to Stage 4 lung cancer. Such a recipe for lifelong remorse and regret not only was about my children and my perceived failure as a father but also included all my accumulated emotional baggage and psychological “pain body” of emotions, ie. loss, hurt, guilt, frustration, anger and untreated trauma probably going as far back as Mr. Peabody’s “Wayback Machine” (Rocky and Bullwinkle Show) or Rod Taylor’s time machine from the original 1960 movie could conceivably take me in my quantum entangled childhood past to old age present.

Together all of these factors and toxic ingredients represented a closed system and an unwitting recipe for family enmeshment, codependency and a general lack of healthy boundaries that likely blurred and blunted my three sons (insert black and white photo of Fred McMurray freaking out on LSD here) autonomy, individual identity and healthy separation/individuation as well as undermined my late in ballgame efforts to promote clear and reasonable expectations of age-appropriate accountability, rules, responsibility and prosocial 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.