You & Them
The Virgo parent
Mercury in Virgo notices everything, which is why nothing in your house is forgotten and why you cannot put the worry down. Your children are looked after with real precision. The work is letting them be imperfect in front of you.
- Your sign
- Virgo
- Element
- Earth
- Mode
- Mutable
- Ruler
- Mercury
The parent you already are
Nothing gets dropped in your house. The form was signed, the kit was washed, the friend who said the unkind thing last week has not been forgotten.
Mercury gives you a kind of care that does not announce itself. You are not the parent making speeches; you are the parent who noticed that they have stopped eating the thing they always ate, and quietly worked out why. Over a childhood that adds up to an enormous amount of being properly looked after.
You are also good at explaining. Every child on this page benefits from an adult who can take something complicated and make it plain, and you do it without condescending.
The hour that tests you
It is the moment a child does something almost right.
The improvement arrives first. You can hear yourself doing it: that is lovely, now if you just, you nearly have it, careful. Each one is small and accurate and helpful, and the child hears a running commentary on what is still wrong. Several signs in this list will simply stop attempting things in front of you, and Leo, Libra and Virgo children will do it soonest.
The second thing is the worry. You are carrying more of it than you show, and children pick up the weather rather than the words. What you experience as being prepared, a Cancer or Pisces child receives as a world that needs watching.
What to do with that
Praise the process out loud, in specifics, before anything else. That they went back and checked. That they kept going after the difficult bit. It is true, it is exact, and it does not raise the stakes on the next attempt.
Get something wrong deliberately, in front of them, and carry on without a performance of regret. Every anxious child in this house learns more from that thirty seconds than from any amount of reassurance.
And put the list down for an hour a day. Not because the list is wrong, but because your children need to see you being unproductive and content, and they will otherwise grow up believing that love is a task that is never quite finished.
What you carry into the room
What you give without trying
- Competence. The bag is packed, the appointment is remembered, the thing that mattered to them last Tuesday is still on your list.
- Attention to the small signal. You catch the sore throat, the friendship going wrong, the drawing that was torn up on purpose.
- Practical love. You show it by doing the thing, and your children feel it even when nobody has said anything.
Where you catch
- Correcting. The improvement leaves your mouth before the praise does, and they hear only the improvement.
- Passing on the worry. You think you are being careful and they receive a world that needs watching.
- Doing it yourself because it will be right. Every time you do, a child learns that their version was not good enough.
You, with each of the twelve
Twelve children, twelve different weathers between you. Find yours, and then read them in full.
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They charge at things and break them, and your instinct is to steady, fix and warn. Count how often you say be careful when nothing is dangerous. Let them attempt it badly, decide quickly when they push, and get the running out of them before the evening starts.
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A comfortable, capable pair. You notice, they settle, and the house works without much friction. Watch the standards: a Taurus child will meet them slowly and hate being hurried, and hurrying is the one thing that turns this easy child immovable.
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Same ruler, opposite settings. They scatter, you sort, and their unfinished things will genuinely bother you. Let six short things count as a good afternoon, and answer the questions properly; explaining is something you are unusually good at.
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You both notice, which is lovely and can become two people quietly worrying about each other. Deal with their worry briskly and then close it. Name the atmosphere in the house out loud, because this child will otherwise decide it is about them.
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They want admiration and you offer accuracy. Both are love; only one of them lands. Say the admiring thing first and the correction later, in private, and let them be gloriously over the top without improving it.
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Two sets of high standards and two anxious minds. The house will be extremely well run and slightly tense. Be the one who models getting it wrong without disaster, out loud, regularly, because they are watching you to learn whether mistakes are survivable.
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They want company and harmony; you want the job done properly. A Libra child will agree with your correction and quietly stop trying. Offer two options, praise their choosing, and sit on the floor with them doing nothing in particular more often.
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They keep things back and you notice everything, which they experience as being watched. Give this child real privacy on purpose. Be exactly honest with them, including about difficult facts, and let them come out of a mood at their own speed.
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They are messy, loud, optimistic and out of the door, and none of it is carelessness about you. Loosen the rules that do not matter, give the reason for the ones that do, and take them somewhere. Your precision is wasted on tidiness and brilliant on their big questions.
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Two earth signs, both serious, and a very capable household. The danger is that it becomes all duty. Insist on the pointless pleasure, and tell this child out loud that the adults are handling it, because they are already carrying more than you handed them.
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They will do it the wrong way and get the right answer, and it will bother you. Let the harmless deviations stand; your corrections are the fastest way to train the inventiveness out of this child. Give reasons rather than rules and they cooperate easily.
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Your opposite sign. You bring exactness; they bring the unmeasurable, and each of you has what the other lacks. Give them structure without resenting the dreaminess: the visible list, the same place for the shoes, the countdown before the game ends. Do not correct the imaginary world.