We’ve had a bit of a set-to about ironing  in our house lately.

First things first: I don’t iron. There are seven of us under this roof and my motto is ‘If it needs ironing, don’t buy it’. Some things, however, are inescapable. Like school uniforms. I don’t choose the uniform, but have its nasty, shiny, acrylic effrontery thrust upon me. So, inevitably, it comes out of the washing machine crumpled and, no matter how hard I shake it, it stays crumpled. I must confess that my internal response to this is ‘Well, it’s clean, isn’t it?!’ Already I can hear many wonderfully efficient mothers gasping in horror. And maybe they even have five children themselves. But… well… that isn’t me.

Until my eldest came home saying one of his classmates had greeted him with: ‘Doesn’t your mother have an iron?’ Misogynism and gender stereotyping aside, they had a point. And the honest answer is no. He kept the  iron after the divorce. And the ironing board. Not to mention the washing machine and tumble-drier and… But that is already a fairly well-trodden path I’m not heading down right now. So I’ve bought an iron. And an ironing board (and a washing machine). And yesterday morning at breakfast they each removed their uniforms a piece at a time to be ironed. (See? Even my ‘efficiency’ becomes somewhat ridiculous. Or perhaps I should be kinder to myself and label it eccentric instead. In any case, it isn’t strictly conventional).

(Even typing this makes  me somewhat nervous in light of my ex-husband’s recent claims that I am a neglectful mother. As patently ridiculous as that is – in the six years that I have had children of school age, and the first four of those were with him, neither of us ever ironed a school uniform and he didn’t have a problem with it then – it has fallen under the heading of ‘conveniences to bully Alice about’ of late. It is tragic, but indicative of the times, that I even have to add this caveat!)

Returning from school, I told these boys ‘o’ mine that their uniforms, if they were going to be ironed, should be folded neatly upon removal or else there’s little point at all. This morning, walking into the bedroom of the eldest two, I found my usually ruthlessly  efficient number one son’s uniform crumpled in a heap and my usually chaotic  number two son’s neatly folded. Feeling praise was due for such a feat from such a scatterbrain, I said: “Well done Artie!”

And Humphrey turned his back in a sulk.

All of this is a rather long-winded setting of the scene which this morning prompted a deeper investigation into Humphrey’s behaviour, psyche and astrology. Alarm bells rang. I explained that saying well done to Arthur could not be interpreted as “You’re a rotten son, Humph”, that love was not performance-related. But it was that last phrase that rang the biggest alarm bells. I mean, deep within me, too. My first reaction is his already much-explained and very powerful Mars in Aries: me first, best, biggest, fastest! Competition all the way. But even that, even being in its domicile and therefore very strong, it didn’t explain what has become a classic ‘Super-Achiever’ problem.

Of late, we have had jokey conversations outlining the trend, begun by Humph, of “Let’s sing Humphrey’s praises”. You know the kind of thing. Your child comes home from school, tells you they had a maths test and you say “Oh really? How did you do?” Only in Humph’s case, it has become “We had a maths test today – Sam got 57%, Bill got 62%” etc etc and then, at the end, he either tells or you ask. “I got 98%!” Your first reaction, of course, as his mother, is to be extremely pleased for him for his achievement. But it’s a strange phenomenon that it becomes difficult to praise somebody when they appear to have enough self-praise to do the job several times over! It does, actually, precisely the opposite of what he hopes to achieve. Now I certainly don’t want to sound like a disgruntled or over-critical mother. The fact is that I believe I have a legitimate concern:   he is putting himself under enormous pressure to be the best at everything. I mean everything. You remember how this started? Even folding his uniform…

Million dollar question: WHY?

My immediate instinct is that he wants approval. He wants to be noticed. And that, in itself, is the classic signature of insecurity. But why? Is he not loved? Happy? Safe? Well… on the surface yes. He is. But there is clearly something deeper at work. So, we move on to the divorce. Humphrey has Moon in Cancer – his emotional security is all about the family. So, walking to school, it occurred to me that his parents’ split was something he could not control, something that made him feel unsafe, perhaps. And he began to super-achieve in order to have control over himself – the only thing he truly knew he could control.

OK. That seemed to fit the bill.

Except… something was still missing. His birth family was no longer together, but of course he is very happy with his stepfather and sees his father regularly.

So let’s see if we can cross the room without bumping into the elephant.

The situation with my family. And his father. All over there, on that side, together. On the opposite side from Mummy.

Ah.

Let’s take a look at his chart, shall we?

Humphrey has a Yod in his nativity, the focal point of which is a peregrine (ptolemaically unaspected) and stationary Pluto, in the 4th House,  from Moon in Cancer sextile Saturn in Taurus. As you probably know, wherever Pluto falls, there is anxiety, and being in the 4th House in this case it is about the family – not the immediate family, you understand, but the fundamental concept of the family, the roots of the family, what family means.

Pluto in the 4th House is a Plutonic family situation. The 4th is also, in a man’s chart, the Mother’s domain, so a Plutonic family situation through the matriarchal line.

The two longer sides of this Yod – the quincunxes – are, then, from Saturn and Moon. The quincunxes of a Yod are the two difficult aspects the native must attempt to get to grips with, the reward for which is the Sextile forming the Yod’s base. In Humphrey’s case, these two are Moon/Pluto and Saturn/Pluto. So, looking into these, Saturn is on the cusp of the 10th House, which represents the same-sex parent and Saturn/Pluto, as we have seen many times so far (unfortunately) is all about control agendas, cruelty. The father’s control agendas and cruelty. On the other side we have Moon/Pluto: safety anxiety. With Moon in Cancer and Pluto in the 4th, this is the anxiety about feeling safe with the mother because of the situation with her family. (You couldn’t make it up, could you?!) The challenge of Humphrey’s Yod is how to fit all those things together. How is he to feel safe, faced with the father’s control agendas alongside the mother’s family? What does family mean if you can be cast out for making a difficult and unpopular decision?

Moon/Saturn is the concept of self-control, the control of the feelings, a sense of duty, family loyalty. So this is what is driving the Yod to Pluto. How can he be loyal to his father when he has sided with his mother’s family? And how can he feel safe with his mother with the endless control agendas and cruelty? And the situation becomes yet more compelling.

We add Amor to the equation. The asteroid Amor is all about the concept of unconditional love and how it plays out in our astrology. In Humphrey’s case, it squares the Moon and trines Pluto, so it forms an  integral part of the pattern with the Yod. What Humphrey has witnessed is that love is not unconditional: square Moon which is in quincunx to Pluto – because of the mother’s situation with her family, and trine Pluto in quincunx to Saturn – supercharged by the father’s control agendas. Humphrey has, therefore, ingested the information that love is conditional upon pleasing the father: in his case his father (Saturn) and in his mother’s case her father (the 4th House is the domicile of the opposite-sex parent, containing Pluto quincunx Moon).

Oh, and Amor is in Aries, therefore ruled by Mars: Mr Competitive Super-Achiever.

Phew.

So we had a chat.

And I told him that it didn’t matter if he was good or bad; came top, middle or bottom; excelled or failed; folded his uniform or left it in a crumpled heap – none of that would affect my love and that he is safe. His eyes welled up and his shoulders relaxed with visible relief.  All of this, of course, I had hoped he knew already, but it bears saying from time to time.

Leave a little room for your brothers to shine, eh? ;-)

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