"Why should a kid pay for what their ancestors have done?"

To be clear, that's not really what I'm talking about. I mean, the child is faced with similar situations that the parent went through and given the chance to make different decisions. For instance, in my family, there is a loooooooooong line of codependency. On my husbands side of the family there is a very long line of child abandonment issues. The particular family I'm talking about with my original post, the father became and alcoholic because he was very unsure of his ability to be a good father and it was easier for him to just drink away the pain than face the fears and uncertainty about it--ulitmately leading to not knowing his child if they passed on the street (which actually happened, btw) and a life long issue of alcoholism and instability. The child in this instance is faced with similar. In that, he can face his fears and feelings of insecurities regarding being a good father figure (even if it is not the fairytale he had dreamed up in his mind) or...you know, do what daddy did. Even though he doesn't even know that is exactly what daddy did because they don't know eachother, nor has he been around his family.

What if a group of people are here to learn the same lessons so they incarnate as a family and generation after generation..they attempt to get it right. Surely marked in an astrology chart as personal karma. And very akin to a nature vs nurture argument. But, anyway, I'm having some trouble explaining myself here.

Thanks for the book info, Opal.

I definitely believe in family karma. Interestingly, when I was in therapy my psychologist told me that trauma lives for 6 generations. I see that and can trace that in my own family, as well as see it in the Collective (thinking of First Nations children born to residential school survivors--or children of war survivors or children of former slaves for that matter).

I have Grand trine(s) in the water houses: Venus and Mars in 4th, Saturn in 8th, Neptune in 12th.

I also saw a clairvoyant healer about 5 years ago--she told me that I was carrying the pain of my grandmother. She told me that I had to forgive her and my sister if I wanted to get rid of my physical pain. It was interesting to me because at that time I wasn't even thinking of my maternal grandmother. I have this whole little universe of feelings when it comes to her that I don't quite know how to access.

@Milano ... I feel the same way about my family... And I also have 8H Sun, but my Moon is sqare Venus, so I guess "hard" marriages run in my family.

My fathers father died when he was nine. I met him when I was nine and then he died when my half sister was nine.