Parenting, Childhood & Astrology, Part 1: The Roles of the Parents, Whoever They Are

I have never been a parent. I do have some experience as a child, but that was a long time ago. Any advice or information I am offering about parenting and childhood is based on how I feel astrology looks at the topic.

The first and most important point: every person is unique. There are no blanket rules you can apply to any child (or, for that matter, any interaction with any other person). Given the varying speed with which each planet moves through the zodiac, from as short as 28 days to as long as 250 years, the occurrence of all the planets being in the exact same position a second time is separated by thousands of years. Every person and every child is unique.

Old-time astrology very clearly delineates the functions of the mother and father in a chart, and I agree with the concepts, but these days the job may not always be carried out by the traditional male/father or female/mother. The concepts of what a “family” actually entails have shifted in the past few decades. As a result I have chosen to rename the roles as the “inner parent” and the “outer parent.”

The inner parent, the traditional role of the mother, is associated with the Moon and the 4th house. The Moon symbolizes your emotions and intuition, and your deepest sense of self. By correlation the 4th house represents home, mother and the roots of your psyche. The responsibility of the inner parent is to make you accept yourself exactly as you are, to teach you to love yourself no matter what, unconditionally, and ideally, to instill in you a sense of self-worth. Any person playing this role is fulfilling the job of the inner parent.

Traditionally the father has been associated with the Sun, and to a degree, Saturn. And Saturn’s home is in the 10th house, the house of career, public image and the father. The 4th and 10th house can be viewed as opposites in balance. The outer parent exposes you to the outside world, teaching you to have integrity when you face the world beyond the door of your home, and to give you an idea of what that world expects of you.

And these are the two major issues in everyone’s life to some degree or another: how to balance ego, a sense of individuality and personality, with the needs of the outside world. What is your role in society and how do you fulfill it while preserving your sense of self at the same time? As much as we may want to believe we can be free of responsibility and self-reliant, we live in a world with billions of other people and we only kid ourselves if we think we can remain apart and disconnected. Striking the balance between these two seemingly conflicting points is a big theme in everyone’s life.