. . . and then there was pickle.

The last post of mine my brother will ever read.

See . . . in my family we’re all fu**in' crazy, but one of the unspoken rules is that you don’t get to tell anybody else how whacko they are – because then they will have the right to tell you how screwed up you are, and I’m pretty nuts too.

So, Tony . . . stop reading here.

This is the part where I vent about how I think he’s completely screwing up his kids. I cant tell him this directly, of course, because then he would have the right to tell me the same . . . but he really is, I swear.

I come from a family where we are quite competent at taking the ‘fun’ out of dysfunction. I will give the complete story of my childhood in a later blog, but here’s the gist: My father is a genius – one of the real ones, but he’s also really crazy. He was a systems analyst (computer geek) in the late 70’s when he smoked a lot of pot, talked to god, and moved all four of us from Detroit into the Arizona desert to “start a mission.”

What actually happened is that he wholly embraced his hermit nature, and raised his family in the middle of the desert with as little contact with the outside world as possible. I grew up without electricity, running water, or social contact until we moved to a suburb of Cleveland, OH - just before I entered the 7th grade.

There are aspects of this rearing that I think provided the strongest possible base for human existence, which cannot be attained in today’s world - and has been invaluable to (what I believe to be) my success as a person and artist. On the other hand I know whole-heartedly that it is also why I am so completely whacked, and have had such difficulty assimilating into functional society.

As a group, my family is amazingly intelligent, extraordinarily creative, witty, and morally just. We also have absolutely no functional ability within group/social situations or long-term, non-intimate or non-familial relationships.

My brother is now taking his children down essentially the same path we had.

What makes this ironic is that as children – he was the one that took issue with the way our father was raising us. He is four years older than me. He took issue to the level of moving out when he was fifteen. He moved into town with friends - at fifteen . . . did I mention fifteen?

Yet somehow he has now created a complete world of isolation for his own three children. His wife home schools and the only people they are allowed to come into contact with are people that they associate with through their church. These kids are no longer toddlers. They are 9, 7, and 5.

One of the few positive aspects of our society, as a whole, is that our culture will provide an honest sounding board for your behavior, performance and being (excluding American Idol). We have a societal Catcher In The Rye – they’re called peers.

I am terrified that these children will eventually have to deal with the cruel reality that is society - without any of the internal tools of survival (both emotional and legitimate) in a world that doesn’t look at you through a mother’s eyes.

It almost appears to me that he has taught his children the perfect form for a breast-stroke, but has done nothing to prepare them for the water.

I believe that we, as parents, have a responsibility to prepare our children to be able to survive without us someday. Every bird needs to be able to fly out of the nest on it’s own, and if you only train in controlled environments, then how are you supposed to trust that they can actually fly straight in the wind that they will inevitably face outside of the nest?

This is what I believe to be the biggest flaw in my family’s genetic code. We as a family have, for as many generations as I have observed, justified our behaviors with an intricate system of, ‘you lie, and I’ll swear to it.’ We live in little bubbles of denial that keep reducing our control group until we are as good, smart, or beautiful as we keep telling ourselves that we are.

The more criticism we get - the more we shut ourselves off from the outside world, and see everyone outside our bubble as an enemy that doesn’t know what they’re talking about. It’s like living in a cult where the only goal is to believe that you’re right – doesn’t matter what about.

Any time someone justifies their behavior with separation and exclusion – it makes me nervous. If you can’t justify your behavior and beliefs in the face of opposition then there is something wrong.

I am one of the few people with my last name that have learned this lesson by actually venturing out into the real world into working and social situations where comparison is inevitable, and public embarrassment/scrutiny is a way of life, and now that I am a parent I am terrified of falling into the same familial traps. Through therapy, and years of working as a professional actor I have been forced to take an honest inventory of who I am, and what my true nature is.

In the home I grew up in self-realization was the one constant lie . . . denial was and is standard operating procedure.

There is not a single person in my family that hasn't pumped themselves so full of overblown, impossible, illogical delusions of self, potential and place in the world - that ensuring isolation is the only way to keep from running head on into a complete crash of self-image.

It is amazing how everyone gravitates toward jobs where they work alone or in specific areas where they are ‘the’ person. We don’t play well with others, or perhaps we just don’t like admitting that others play too - possibly better or in different ways than we do.

I have been forced to adapt, yet my animalistic ‘bear’ instinct - is to grab up my family and hide in a cave in the mountains, just like everyone else. What interferes with this reaction is reality. The reality that I refuse to do what my father did to me. I need to prepare my daughter for living - not protect her from it.

I believe that the world is a hard and scary place, but I will be doing her a disservice if I don’t slowly dip her feet into the cold water bit by bit to get her acclimated, rather than trying to sew a patchwork bodysuit that I know will never hold-up under a lifetime’s submergence.

I know that my brother would have an equally logical and passionate discourse on justifying his family situation, and his opinion on MY failed responsibilities as a parent.

That’s the issue - parents are even worse than opinions (being like a**-holes) because each one of us has even more than one . . .

Pickle’s Papa

p.s. - any family members that read this and feel motivated to comment - please e-mail me instead. I do not wish to turn this blog into forum for family discussion. It's where I get to vent. If you want to tell your side of the story . . . start your own blog.