Astrology and Conscious Parenting: Saturn in Synastry
September 6, 2009 by cafeastro
Filed under Annie's Blog
I don’t know the statistics on this, but I definitely have seen a lot of close Saturn contacts in synastry between parent and child, where the parent’s Saturn is involved. Of the hard aspects, the conjunctions seem to naturally function better than the squares and oppositions.
My middle child, a 15 year old girl, is a Pisces with Moon in Aries. Her Aries Moon is conjunct Venus (also in Aries), and both planets conjunct my Saturn. I have to be aware of my Saturnian role with her. I look at it in this manner: One of my roles in her life is to teach her, in so many ways, to temper the more difficult expressions of her Moon-Venus in Aries, but I have to be careful not to stomp upon her enthusiasm in the process.
Every now and again she has “emotional emergencies” as I like to think of them as. When something bothers her, or she wants something, her first instinct is to freak out. She has to solve the problem right now. She has to get the thing that she wants ASAP. If she can’t find something, the whole household has to be involved in order to track it down, and she doesn’t always treat everyone in a grateful manner as she enlists (demands) our help in the search!
As a baby and young child, people often commented on how easy she was, describing her as gentle, patient, feminine, and quiet. I still get that kind of feedback from teachers and parents of her friends. She is a quiet person (although she speaks rather loudly when she does speak), and she’s not aggressive at all in her interactions out and about. At home, she is a leader in the household. While she needs her space and keeps to herself a fair amount, when she’s in the mood for fun, she is truly the “life of the party” in the family room. She’s hilarious and fun, outspoken and direct, and always taking the lead. She animates us, gets us the best seats for concerts (she’s totally on top of who’s coming when, pre-sales, and any other news), and is quick to do new things without instruction. She gets annoyed easily, but gets over it just as quickly. In a very general sense, I can certainly say that she is a Pisces to the rest of the world, and an Aries at home. Obviously she brings both her Sun and Moon to the table wherever she is, but one dominates in different situations. And, this is not unique to her, of course. We all express our Moon signs more when we’re comfortable, with family or others very close to us.
With her Moon-Venus in Aries on my Saturn in Aries, I have great respect for her Aries qualities that come so naturally to her. What I have to be careful of is that I let her know this, because in my Saturnian role, I might get too caught up in tempering the more negative expression of the sign–of “teaching” her or correcting her–and forget to (or even feel uncomfortable doing so) praise her for her spunk.
While Saturn conjunctions in synastry are not as challenging as squares and oppositions, they’re not as easy as sextiles and trines either. With the conjunction, the Saturn person can always seem to be the “heavy”–the one who rains on the personal planet’s parade. If we as parents are always playing the heavy role, the child is likely to be frustrated, to rebel, and to not listen to our “lessons”. With the Saturn contacts, we should be especially mindful of this.
Over the years, I have come to discover that I had often responded to my daughter’s emotional emergencies with too much reasonableness or even a holier than thou attitude. I eventually realized that this only frustrated her more. An Aries Moon person does not want to listen to reason when she/he is in a tizzy!
Where Saturn is positioned in our chart–by sign, house, and aspect–often shows qualities that don’t come naturally to us. We might secretly admire these qualities but have a hard time expressing them spontaneously, and this feeling can sometimes express itself in jealousy.
As a teenager, my Scorpio mother always seemed to me to reduce any bad situation to a situation of jealousy. I thought she went overboard with these theories back then, but grew to agree with her. She basically said that any time someone treats you poorly for no particular reason, or feels the need to nitpick and criticize you often, they’re jealous of you. They’re feeling some kind of lack in themselves. Difficult Saturn contacts in synastry very often point to jealous behaviors on the part of the Saturn person, and sometimes the not-so-difficult Saturn contacts have shades of this. The Saturn person feels a lack in him/herself, sees it expressed so easily in the personal planet person, and reactions can be critical and sometimes downright nasty.
Not many parents want to believe they can be jealous of a child’s behavior, and might instead think of their criticisms as constructive. A lot of our teachings and criticisms do stem from love, but some don’t, and that’s something to consider, especially when Saturn is strongly contacting a child’s personal planets.
If you’ve been on the receiving end of a poorly handled Saturn in synastry interaction, or a jealous person whose Saturn was in hard aspect to one of your personal planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, or Mars), you’ll know how depressing and demotivating it can be. With my Mars in Sagittarius, I love to laugh and when I do it’s hearty and sometimes a bit out of control. A person whose Saturn squared my Mars seemed to think that it was self-indulgent, and I will tell you, there is nothing more sobering than to begin to enjoy a good laugh and to be faced with a person who looks at you like you’re absolutely crazy for doing so. He even told me that “some people’s laughs are addictive…yours isn’t”.
When my daughter was born, I had a conversation with my sister, who has the same Moon-Venus conjunction in Aries (and they both have Leo rising). I told my sister that my daughter’s chart was in some distinct ways similar to hers. My sister is very straightforward and immediately replied with, “You’re going to drive her crazy when she’s a teenager.” When asked a big WHY?, she laughed and told me, “You’re just too reasonable…you’re going to tell her to calm down at all the wrong moments…and your slow responses, poor kid”. Yep, she was right–that’s exactly what happened when my daughter hit puberty, and it took a bit of time to figure out that even though it’s my Saturn on her Moon-Venus, I’m not the only “teacher” in the equation. She has a lot to teach me about my own fears and lacks (or perceptions of lack). I have to say that it’s easier to learn from your own child than a sibling or anyone else for that matter, I guess because there is more tolerance there, and less of an inclination to compete. My other daughter, like me, has Saturn in Aries conjunct her sister’s Moon-Venus, and the interplays between the two girls are not quite as polished! My Aries Moon daughter often tells my Aries Saturn daughter things like, “Get over yourself!”, “just do it”, and “what’s the big deal”, while my Aries Saturn daughter asks her sister why she has to be “so rude” and “so insensitive”.
I chose the title “conscious parenting” because that’s what relationship astrology can help us with–we are more conscious of why we’re reacting a certain way to a person when it’s clear they’re triggering certain hotspots in our own chart. Still, I don’t think it’s possible, or even healthy, to practice conscious parenting, or conscious relating in general, all the time. In fact, some of the most revealing lessons in life come from messy periods of trial and error. And, in fact, this is one of the lessons of Aries. Sometimes it’s better to jump in and experience things, fully confident that if we do make mistakes, we’ll be able to handle the consequences and even turn them into an advantage.
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What a wise and sensitive post!
Thank you, NR!
I love this post! I’m fascinated by parent-child synastry. While I agree with you that conscious parenting probably isn’t even healthy to do all the time, it at least forces you to see an upside to a complex aspect. So instead of being That Saturn who stifles her energy, you could use your Saturn on your daughter’s Moon-Venus to help reinforce the good qualities of Saturn. Boundaries. Self-respect. Consistency. (Which any fifteen-year-old can use to great effect!)
My mother’s Saturn in Leo is my 4th House, and my Pluto in Scorpio is in her 4th House. Her Uranus is Gemini is also in my 1st House, widely conjunct my Moon and Ascendant. Not to mention that I have a Scorpio stellium and Pluto as a final dispositor, and she has an Aries Moon, and Pluto and Ceres EXACTLY CONJUNCT in Leo in her 1st House. Yeah. Some serious symbiotic Demeter-and-Persephone sh*t going on there. So as you can well imagine, I’m all for using the charts to navigate appropriate boundaries between parents and children. (My mom’s all for therapy, but she totally trusts my astrological insights. We’ve struck a balance!)
I am fascinated with it as well. I feel that I am able to deal with certain situations and behaviors with my kids a little better than I would if I didn’t have use of the language and symbology of astrology to understand some of the more complex interactions between us.
You bring up an excellent point–as adults, using astrology and synastry to better understand our relationships with our parents can be very revealing and even therapeutic. Just knowing, for example, that your mother’s Saturn squares your Moon can help you to understand why she might have treated you with more emotional distance than she did your siblings. Just an example! Or, in your case, knowing that your mom’s Uranus is in your first and close to your Moon and Ascendant, it can help you to understand that one of the roles she is playing in your life is to shake you up a bit, shock you perhaps, keep you on your toes, teach you to lose some of your inhibitions, etc. It’s great that your mom is recognizing that, if you use it the right way, astrology can be therapy. The way I like to look at it, in your case, your mother’s influence on you is almost like a transit of Saturn to your 4th, and your influence on her is similar to a Pluto transit to her 4th (amongst many other things), and both can be pretty intense!
It’s so true- I looked at my younger sister’s chart compared to my mom’s after I left my first comment, and in fact their synastry is quite different, but equally intense. My sister’s Libra Sun is conjunct my mom’s Neptune, her Leo Moon is conjunct my mom’s Pluto-Ceres conjunction, and my mom’s Aries Moon is conjunct my sister’s Mars. It’s EXTREMELY revealing of their dynamic, which is far and away from the way my mom and I have typically related to each other all my life. So when my mom is like, “I can’t understand why you tell me everything but she never tells me anything, except to cop attitude and yell,” I’m like, “Uh… I can?”
It’s also interesting to me to see how families pass down astrological placements, like my mom’s Ascendant becoming my sister’s Moon and my dad’s Moon in Pisces (I think he has a Moon in Pisces, anyway) becoming my Sun, and your daughter’s Leo Ascendant and Moon-Venus in Aries being inherited from your sister (so to speak). Even when there seems to be worlds of difference and misunderstandings between family members, if you look at the charts, sometimes you can see that certain family members are actually more alike, or complementary, than you would immediately think. (For instance, I have no fire, but tons of water. My mom has no water, but tons of fire. Another layer to our mythically intense bond!) That also bridges some of the gaps.
Lucy, I love looking at patterns in families, and most of them you don’t even have to look for, per se–they just pop out at you. I was really surprised when I found strong correlations between my chart and my grandmother’s, for example. I looked at her in a different light. In general, she was a dutiful person, but she absolutely had to work, as much as her husband didn’t want her to. Her job wasn’t high profile in any way, but she loved it and wouldn’t give it up. It makes me wonder what I would have done if I were born in that era. When my first child was born in 1991, I had asked my husband to put in my newborn son’s birth data (I had the old Matrix BlueStar software), print up the chart, and bring it back to me at the hospital. My husband didn’t know much at all about astrology, yet he told me that he thought he was printing out my chart because it looked so similar. Truth is, the signs were all different, but the overall pattern, with house emphases, was so similar to mine that even he noticed it. It’s a lot of fun and helpful as well to see certain signatures that you’ve “inherited” and passed on.
My mothers saturn is in scoprio and is conjuction my sun-pluto conjuction which is in scoprio its falls in her 12th house but my 4th house
my saturn conjuctions my dad’s sun not 100% about this birthtime but I guessed that he is a scorpio asendent around the around 9 degrees becasue my sun definitly falls in his 12th house I know for sure that his sun is in my 5th house but my saturn is it his 3rd or 2nd house i think more 2nd becasue hes money oriented towareds me such as he gives me money almost to make up for not being there for me more than anyone eles in my family. He also uses money to have control over me in some repects I feel.
My mother I can’t feel love from her (even thos I think she does) but I love her very much she believes doing things that consume her time for me and not affections are worth more now time is important but I rather have love.
Sorry I was rambling but any insights you picked up on would be nice.
This was a really beautiful and thought-provoking post. I’ve always had a troubled relationship with my parents, and hard Saturn aspects to go along. I was raised in rigid, cold, authoritarian household with lots of discipline and not much love. My dad is much older, and big into discipline and the whole “children should be seen and not heard” thing. His Saturn is smack dab on my ascendant. I definitely felt stifled by him.
My mother was also older when I was born. Her Saturn is smack dab on my Moon, Venus, and Chiron in the 6th. She was always hypercritical, controlling, cold, and manipulative–especially after I hit puberty.
Hello, Annie, I love this piece! As always, very sensitively done. My Saturn in Gemini is conjunct my father’s Saturn, which is also conjunct his father’s Saturn. So I and my father were both born on our father’s Saturn return. I adored my grandfather as a baby and toddler and actually thought he was my dad because my own father was away in the war.
I am wondering if you’d allow me to reprint this on Skywriter. I don’t have any articles on parenting and this is an exceptional one. Donna Cunningham
What a GREAT post! SkyWriter Donna Cunningham turned me onto your website and blog (and I am SO adding this to my blogroll hehe!)
Yes, my daughter was born right before my Saturn Return. We have other planetary contacts too, but our Saturns being in its classically-ruled sign of Aquarius really shows! I am going to peruse around here more, and thanks again for this awesome post!