I was talking to someone today with whom I had things in common. This is not specific to this one person, they just triggered my thinking.
I realized, my family was okay with competing. I played cards, my sister played tennis. She and I also competed in science fairs. I used to debate like a demon as well.
This suits my chart, of course, but what would have happened if I were from a different family? Might I have been a Mars in Libra, people-pleaser on steroids?
I also think my parents being Aquarian was a help to me. I wasn’t on a short leash, which was perfect. How else could I move to town at thirteen years old?
I have a strong 8th house and the psyches in my house; all I can say is, woo hoo! I come from rich material on that front.
After talking to the client, I realized how very different I would be if I were from a different family. One with actual rules? Am I able to be an astrologer, due in part to my family eccentricities?
I’m good with my situation, but I wonder about other people’s experiences. For example, kids who opt to go against parents who have a strong, fixed agenda for them often suffer quite a bit.
Did your family’s social standards help you? Hinder you? Something else?
As someone with planets in 4th I often wondered the same thing. Would have been nice to be shown more affection and support growing up. Single parent household with no siblings, no relatives nearby whatsoever is not happy. (Although there are perks when you are far from their arguments I guess). I am a gemini sun, I crave lightheartedness and fun because I did not have it growing up. Capricorn moon. In terms of fixed people I know one leo sun square pluto and her parents were overbearing- she had to have the hobbies they wanted, to study at the university they wanted and get the job they wanted. Getting claustrofobic just typing that.
I grew up with my refugee Grandparents across the street. I wasn’t allowed jeans til 5th grade. Grandma held a flashlight, at the car date, coming home. Needless to say, my sister and I hightailed out of state indefinitely. She used her brain,with ivy league colleges. I traveled extensively on cocktail waitress wages until I figured Oregon was far enough from Chicago. Grandma thought I was a drug runner when I went to Mexico for a winter. I returned and proposed to a drummer ,in a band, and set sights on Oregon ( met travelers and found Oregon on the map). The marriage flopped and I found treesitting ( old growth defense) and discovered natural world relief. I did that for long enough and met a guy in a van who offered sex. I got pregnant and decided that didn’t work for long term child rearing. Dad told me right away, he would not support me. There was no way I’d move back home anyway. I moved to Washington. I found government assistance, started sewing, wood working, landscape work and growing a garden. I definitely had to leave my families culture. It was intentionally displaced from it’s traditional culture- the old country. They were messed up from the aftermath of WW2 and hunkered into a lifestyle of TV and consumer Utopia. I’ve been referred to by one of my employers as a wild card. I accept that. Pluto ascendant trine 8th house moon, Saturn, Mercury. Uranus in the 1st in Libra trine Gemini Sun. My Dad and grandma had the Capricorn moon. My perspective of the two growing up were seriously stern with suffocating opinions for security and a pension. Now I see where the pensions derive investments – Israel . It really makes me sad. I’m glad I did it different.
Also the prison system, war industry, chemical companies, and communitarian global governance are also pension derived investments, not just Israel.
Very interesting perspective asqirl.
Yes, my parents had a very strong and fixed agenda for me. I was not allowed to have a say either, abuse, and it lead to near suicide, at 11. It affected me greatly.
my parents and their respective families had some notable differences in values. which allowed me to realize i had a lot of choice, once i left…
I totally agree about the family impact on our personalities. I remember when I started reading psychology book, then astrology books. My parents were not too happy because of their strict religious views. As I realized the hypocrisy I went ahead and studied them anyway.
There was a lot of children in our home. I guess my dad was strict. My mother was not, but they weren’t too fussy. My mother a devout Catholic my father born and raised Baptist. There was expectations. There was lots of music. My dad played the guitar and harmonica and my mother danced. This is a warm fuzzy. I choose to nestle too. I think somewhere in their mid 40s is the time alcohol entered their life so there was a nighttime personalities And next morning people .I had left so young they sent me off to school, this gave me independence and strict living conditions ( nuns/noviciate)I have to be honest to say because my vision was so bad. I think that colored my world how I perceive things I couldn’t exactly see them I heard everything maybe many things I shouldn’t have ;Yes I think they affected me. Do I mimic them tough to call.
My parents were as a relative put it “delightfully frenetic”. They taught me understanding and acceptance of others different from us, about Art, Music, Poetry, Activism, God, compassion, and were both Water signs like me, so we were like a Triangle. It took me a long time to move out but I’d go back home almost every weekend because I enjoyed their company more than my friends. But my friends, like theirs (including the likes of Lawrence Ferlinghetti) were all artist or musicians which made my life rich and a lot of fun as a youth. I still love traveling when I can as we moved back and forth not only from Coast to Coast but also from the US to my father’s homeland of Switzerland . I am very social but in these times, it’s all come to a halt since 2020 and since I had to move out of the Area where I grew up and worked in for 35 years. Though I am social, I am also very shy (moon in Virgo). I enjoy this site for many reasons and it suits my nature-it’s a bit social, it’s internationally visited and posted on, I learn a lot and it mimics the diversity of how I grew up.
Having Aquarius strongly conjunct in the 4th square Taurus in 8…parents divorced when i was young however I strongly remember enough before he left and he was around sufficiently to be a ‘presence’.
Dysfunctions aside I’d say this Aquarius ‘home’ was befitting.
Strict enough but quite artsy.
Lots and lots of music of every kind
(just tittilating my 1st house Neptune).
Sinatra, Ray Charles, Mighty Sparrow, Motown, God’s Trombones, Mahalia Jackson…really didn’t matter.
While my mother (Scorpio) sought to discourage my musical ambitions in favor of me learning something else ‘just in case’, my passion for drumming prevailed.
So she didn’t particularly care for my musical skills if they weren’t gonna pay the bills.
I’m still a musician but I’m also retired from a pretty decent 30+ yr Healthcare career.
Thanks to mom.
There was sternness but she certainly allowed me much freedom to be me (musician/artist) and just enjoy growing up.
I always had this sense that I had to carry the image of the family because of how my parents met. That felt like a huge presence. But it also could have been my perception mixed in with that.
For too long I think I really required my mother’s approval and I took on many of her likes, dislikes, almost as if I was too afraid to make her mad or do something she didn’t like. Certain things seemed impossible, out of the realm of possibility: going to another country, getting a PhD.
I don’t mean to dump on them. It just seemed I didn’t have the same modeling that semed required to gonout in the world in the 1980’s. But as I learned long after, I did learn a lot from my family and in the end it doesn’t really matter how you got where you are because it’s a journey.
Overall, I had certain perceptions about me and the world and everyone and how I fit in.