Pluto In Capricorn: The Shadow Side / Psychology Of Parenting
Astrology in real life
I’ve stated my position on parenting a few times, I think it’s broken. Most kids grow up in single parent homes and even if both parents are involved there are some nasty dynamics that set up.
Both parents tend to try make the other parent the bad guy in one form or the other and even in it’s mildest form this is incredibly destructive.
For example, the mother as the bad guy is a real problem. Mothers are supposed to nurture, the father comes in with the discipline. When you flip these roles it becomes really squirelly.
Because fathers are often part time they tend to be lax when it comes to policing the kids, the mother tends to follow this lead as discipline comes less naturally anyway. As a result we have a generation(s) of kids who don’t know much about discipline.
Keep in mind the kids can and will work the separated parents and before you know the kids are running the show. I think this not only common but usual and work very hard to combat it in my house because I don’t like the result the lack of discipline produces down the road. Consequently, Vid’s dad is the “nice guy” and I am the hard ass and I am telling you this is a strain.
It is a strain but here is some glory for you. The soldier came in and he supports my parenting. He does like this:
“Vid is going camping… I won’t see him for x days,” I told the soldier. “He’s not going to be back until his birthday so I am riding his ass. I can’t ride his ass on his birthday, so I am riding his ass now because you know. I want him to do some of the things he’s supposed to do that he’s not doing and he knows he’s supposed to do them.”
“Tell him if he was in my platoon, I would ride his ass 24/7.”
I laughed and then smiled. See the effect? He is willing to be the bad guy – worse than me so we can get something done around here. It’s mom (she’s easy) not dad (he’s hard).
I got off the phone and told Vid what he said and I saw him smile wide. Vid responds to discipline, most kids do. Too bad having expectations of children has fallen out of favor. I think it’s a mistake.
What do you think about this?
20 Responses to “Pluto In Capricorn: The Shadow Side / Psychology Of Parenting”
I dunno. I’m the bad guy when it comes to parenting. My SO has a daughter and he’s taken in by her cute ways and smile.
I’m big on personal responsibility, and teaching your kids what they need to learn to be successful adults.
He just doesn’t think anything is a big deal and so she doesn’t learn and she falls behind in school and….whatever.
I think :headdesk: please, Lord, let me and my son have this gift in my life in this lifetime.
My kids are far more responsible than I ever was ever. They are amazing. They had to hate me so many times. They still struggle with my interesting choices. Bottom line, I am in their corner 1000%. 1200%. I have their back. So they can blame me, judge me, even dislike me, but I am the one human being that is there for them. That unconditional love thing? Solid. But, they are pissed off little starving artists. But, I still pay for their cell phones. Communication is all.
I hate being the bad guy with my kids and my step son. Neither of my step son’s parents will be firm enough with him in my opinion. The lines are much too soft and he is confused and manipulative. Hate it and it isn’t doing him any favors.
My older kids dad is a jelly fish. He alternates between being Santa Claus and being really mean out of the blue.
John is kind but firm with my kids but has trouble sticking to boundaries with his own son out of guilt I assume. He spends more time with my daughter and youngest son than he does with his own son and I know it kills him to miss out on so much.
I tell Vid, “you’re not going to be able to get by on your good looks and a smile…”
His dad teaches the exact opposite message. Mars / trying / striving / effort /competing is just so squashed in this culture.
My sister’s husband’s sister is going through a terrible divorce right now. There are two daughters, and the older one actually ended up in a psychiatric facility, due to suicide attempts, and cutting herself. The father just up and announced one day that he was no longer in love with his wife, and the marriage was over. This was about 9 mths ago, and he did leave her for someone else, who threw her own husband out, and has 2 young children of her own. These two morons are actually “engaged” right now. What a pair of selfish, immature assholes. Look, I get that marriages sometimes do not work out, but this man had no regard for how this was going to impact his kids – he just expected them to “deal” with it. He even tried to fight his daughter seeing a psychiatrist, saying she is just trying to “get back at him”. The younger girl, maybe she will fare better, I don’t know, but he has forever damaged these girls, and I doubt they will easily trust any man in their lives. They have years ahead of them of stress, because I assume he will remain in their lives, since they are still working out visitations. The older girl (16) refuses any contact with him, and family court is allowing that, due to her serious psychological problems. I can see that the younger child is trying to defend her father (she is 9), and so of course there is conflict all around here. I just hope for the best for them, but what a mess.
Wow Dorothy, I read this post and as I have been a single parent for 17 years and have some pretty similar feelings on what Elsa has said…I was going to comment in regards to parenting but then I read your comment.
I went through an almost exact situation with my parent’s divorce when I was 13. For example, my mom wanted me to see a psychiatrist and I went to my dad(who was a doctor) to talked with him about it. He didn’t say much but my mom later told me that he said he wasn’t going to pay someone to prove I was crazy, whether this response was true or not or said out of anger, I will not ever know. But the truth is I did not need a psychiatrist, I needed a parent who would be a parent.
What I mean by this is that I need a parent who would not be selfishly concerned with their own wants and who was willing to prioritize their child’s needs. This included my mom, who although, was the ‘injured party’ in the situation was unable to rise above it for a long time.
Understand that I am not blaming either one of them, they did the best they knew how at the time, but there are so many more resources out there now, so much information that shows what this kind of behavior can do to a child and as you’ve said, how it really can affect them for a long time.
So if I have one bit of advice from my experience to offer you, it would be to encourage your sister to detach from the pain (at least when she is with her kids) to rise above it and to focus on changing what she can. She can’t change what he is doing, but she can focus on building up her daughter’s self worth…and really this does go back to what Elsa said about the Mars energy…the trying and the striving. She can show her daughter that even when things are bad, that she can push ahead and that her father’s actions are not connected to what an amazing daughter and young woman she is.
I know that puts a lot on your sister, but in the end it will make all the difference in the world with your nieces.
and I think one thing it will show your nieces, and the one thing I think is lacking in parenting these days, is that…in the struggle, in the wound…lies the gift.
No question that divorce muddies the waters. I am sure my son thinks that I am the hard one and his dad is easy. Frankly I don’t care. His father is not a very aware parent as it is, emotionally. No “philosophy” of parenting and I think it’s a bad approach.
I think it’s a shame that even if you’re incompetent you get to parent. You have to be very careful who you reproduce with!
My cousin and his wife are just incredibly nasty and cannot, at all, put it aside for the kid. I fear the kid will grow up hating both of them and become a juvenile delinquent because they cannot stop bitching about each other and (in the case of my jerk cousin) screwing the other one over.
you know what’s going to happen to these kids if they reach their teens and haven’t built any internal discipline? i see it every day, and it’s frightening…
(and inspires me to get it down with my son _now_)
If we have no expectations of our kids, they are not going to have any expectations of themselves and the implications of this (which are already widely apparent) scare the hell out of me.
I absolutely agree. Kids seem to have this sense of entitlement these days. I think giving your kids expectations and discipline and holding them accountable for their actions is THE best thing you can ever do for them. Parenting is not a popularity contest.
In regards to ‘the other parent’, my ex was lax and really just had no concept of parenting but my boys(now 18 and 19) now see this and quite frankly, although they love their dad, they do not really respect his choices and therefore this has had a positive impact on their behavior and choices as young men.
Just want to clarify about my post – these girls are not my neices, they are my sister’s neices by marriage. But I do know them, of course am no a part of their family, but I hear all he ups and downs through my sister.
Also wanted to say as far as kids having a sense of entitlement – once you decide to have them, they are entitled to you being their parent, and putting them first. Of course that is just my opinion, but I have no patience for parents who go on and on about “their happiness”. Your kids did not ask to be here – you made them, you are responsible for them. Once that decision is made, it simply is no longer all about you anymore, and that is what amazed me the most about this man, walking out on his kids, and not giving them any assistance whatsoever dealing with the A-Bomb he just exploded all over their lives. To me that is the difference between being a responsible adult, and just never fucking growing up yourself (again, just my opinion, I am pretty rigid about these things).
Oops, sorry Dorothy, didn’t see the 2nd ‘sister’:). I do agree with you on putting your kids first. What I have seen so much of is parents, who are either overworked, overstressed, guilt-ridden or maybe selfish, giving their kids what they want and not what they need and I think that creates this sense of entitlement with kids. The parent is wrapped up in their own world and will give the child things or blame their child’s poor behavior on others instead of giving the child what they need(which takes time, selflessness and empathy),compassion when they fail(but they should be allowed to,it’s a part of life), a firm but fair hand and setting the expectation and believing in what that child is truly capable of…without these I think it is creating a small person who believes they do not have to do anything to be rewarded. And I really think that creates a poor sense of self worth for the child. I can’t count how many of my kids’ friends, for example, that treat their mom’s and dad’s and other adults with complete disrespect(I mean calling them names and belittling them)without any discipline, and these are not ‘bad’ kids, it seems to be acceptable…it’s shocking.
As the child of a single mother’s home, I found that some parents actually try to make their children fill the role of partner. Meaning, they try to make their children act responsible for them and to care for their needs in a way that only your partner really can.
As a child, i was expected to keep my mother on track, help her out with bills (to this day she regularly asks for money when she grossly overspends), babysit, cook dinner, clean, take care of all of her other children, validate her self of motherhood and self worth, and just take care of her needs before anyone else’s. To this day, she will blatantly call me selfish for considering my needs before hers (something i learned to do out of rebellion).
I would warn all single parents about doing this to their children, but the sorts who WOULD do this would immediately dismiss such a thing as something they certainly would not/do not do.
I agree with Lexie. I have friends who have done this; they’ve moved far away from their families, and the spouse has a job working graveyard. So the little kid becomes the friend/confidante/whatever. Very strange dynamic. I wonder if the extreme mobility of our culture is contributing. If you don’t have a church or synagogue or some kind of organization, who do you call on for help? Granted, families can be annoying, but at least there’s some continuity and someone to call on.
I don’t have kids myself, but I teach in public school. This group of teens has grown up with access to more material goods than pretty much any other teens in human history. Computers, pricey cell phones, iPods- (all of which, incidentally, isolate the user) technology cannot replace face-to-face contact and loving relationships with people who expect something from you . They don’t have boundaries or consequences or parents, really. Lots of “friends,” though.
The parents seem to do the best they can, but boy does it fall short. One of my students started crying in class the other day out of the blue. Her stupid dad had sent a text message during class saying her grandfather had cancer. What a thing to tell a 16-year-old kid like that! She cried and cried, poor thing. I could strangle that guy.
Get A Consultation
Schedule a consultation by phone
Schedule a consultation by email
Read what clients have said about usThanks, we look forward to working with you! :-) - Elsa P
Order a Report
Order a Transit Report
Order a Solar Return Report
Order a Relationship Composite Report
Order both relationship reports, save 10%
Order a Lunar Return ReportHeads Up from Elsa P!
Sign up below to get my free weekly email newsletter covering the astrology of the next week. I send this email out every Thursday.
Recent Blog Comments
- LisLioness: Bet dollars to donuts that Persona was all zoned out on Neptoooo...
- Satori: I am heartened by the response of us "lot" and proud to ally mys...
- puttycake: I started out after reading the all of the posts about commitmen...
- Alethea: Boy howdy - I guess someone forgot to take their meds today! htt...
- blue_rose: Looks like I was late here, too. I was going to tell persona to ...
- Blessed Place: People who are willing to broadcast unpalatable truths, at risk ...
- CP Griffin: Sanity check. [scan complete] Nope. Not ashamed of myself. Yep....
Recent Board Posts
So good to hear the 24/7 riding ass. I give my kids the soft option all the time. Ok tidy your rooms now …OK after the TV show…OK after your friend phones with a boyfriend problem.Husband comes home… pick your towels up from your bathroom floor or I take all your stuff to Goodwill. Wahh wahh.. job done! We all sit down and have dinner!!