rewrite and elaborate on:

Natal Saturn in the 4th house & the Stages of Psychosocial Development.

Stage 1: Trust vs. Mistrust (approximately from birth until age one or two)

During stage one we are learning whether or not we are safe in the world. Can you trust that someone will consistently comfort you when you cry? Can you trust that you will always be fed? Can you trust that you will always be held and kept warm?

We cannot form memories that are accessible to the conscious mind until about age two, so this is a very tricky and very subconscious stage of development. Things that happen during this stage seem to go directly into the unconscious mind and into the body.

4th house Saturn may be psychologically rooted here. Maybe your caretakers were not consistent in their ability or willingness to meet your basic needs. Perhaps you never truly feel safe. Maybe you don’t trust people to be there or love or care for you and do not ask others to meet your needs. Maybe you’re disconnected from your own basic needs because you’re not used to having them met. Maybe you have learned to associate having or expressing needs with rejection or abandonment and try to detach yourself from them.

Saturn in the 4th house often stems from childhood experiences that left us feeling that our parents–and thus other people in general–could not be trusted. (Note: Saturn in hard aspect to the moon sometimes has a similar root.) Early in life, 4th house Saturns have often had to go without, emotionally or physically. That can be very damaging to a small child who is not yet capable of meeting their own needs. This sense that we must go without persists into adulthood; without early-life evidence that the outside world is capable of meeting your needs, it can be hard to trust that your needs will ever be met as an adult. Many people with Saturn in the 4th house learn to take care of all of their needs on their own, do not trust others to help or support them, or it simply doesn’t occur to them to allow, expect, or ask others to. It can be uncomfortable to even consider that you have needs to begin with.

It’s important to start experimenting with trust as an adult – trust that you can have what you need now, that others can help support you, and that it is safe to not only have needs but to express them to other people. You can choose to grow trust in other people by selecting people who are willing and able to consistently love you, care for you, and help you meet your needs. Through this process, your Saturn in the 4th house becomes a strong, hardy, supportive structure on which you can build a fruitful life, rather than a shoddy foundation built on fear, ‘going without,’ and mistrust.

Stage 2: Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt (approximately from age one or two to three)

Stage 2 is toddlerhood: the “terrible twos”; the tantrums; the endless waterfall of “no;” trying and falling (sometimes literally); trying and succeeding.

This is the age when we discover our autonomy. We are learning to feed, dress and clean ourselves. We are learning to explore the world and our bodies. We begin to form consciously accessible memories and operate from a less instinctual, basic-survival-needs-driven place. If caregivers encourage our autonomy while still remaining close, helping us along, and setting healthy limits, we learn that it is okay to have a will of our own. If our parents discourage autonomy by shaming, under-protecting or overprotecting us, or by doing everything for us, the growth of confidence and inner security is stunted and we may sink into self-doubt.

Saturn in the 4th’s psychological root may lie here, in the experience of seeking autonomy and either learning that it is okay to try (regardless of success!) and to individuate, or that it is shameful to try or to individuate and that you cannot be trusted with autonomy. This is the 4th house Saturn experience of feeling unsure of yourself.

While the first stage of psychosocial development teaches us that others can’t be trusted, the second stage may teach a natal Saturn in the 4th house frequently correlates with a complex experience of learning that you cannot be trusted.


Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt (approximately from age three to seven)

Stage two fades into stage three. This is the age when we learn and refine basic skills, and start doing new things because WE feel like it.

Saturn in the 4th house can cause issues in this phase of growth when it shows up as controlling parents who make you feel fearful of trying things on your own or place too many restrictions on you, or physically or emotionally absent parents who are not there to support you. This is the stage where we learn that it’s okay to do, to take action. If parents aren’t appropriately present and supportive, this can create quite a lot of anxiety around your competence.


4th house Saturn in adulthood
During early adulthood, people with this placement often have a difficult time seeing how capable they really are because of these childhood experiences. Your growing mind could not possibly carry the weight that was put on it during childhood, and the adult part of the brain has a hard time knowing that now you actually can handle things. In other cases, this manifests as difficulty with taking action and knowing that you are free to do so, and that you don’t need anyone’s permission. This placement sometimes imbues its bearer with a deep fear of failure that can be very exhausting. This is especially true if Saturn also opposes your midheaven or any planets in the 10th house, or makes other hard aspects to personal planets.

People with Saturn in the 4th often feel like they were never really children but an adult trapped (and I mean trapped) in a child’s body. People with this placement can be resistant to the idea that they even have an ‘inner child’, because it so often correlates with never really having felt like a child. Rejecting the idea of your inner child is a sign that that inner child is deeply, deeply in need of tender, unconditional love and care.

With this placement (and with difficult Saturn placements in general!), it can be incredibly helpful to speak to your inner child with love and care, perhaps even out loud. Comfort them. Reassure them. Tell them that you are always going to be there for them to love them, support them, and take care of absolutely all of their needs.

4th house Saturn is the quintessential “late bloomer” placement, and I think this is because there is typically so much to bounce back from. Where others may be able to jump right into the next phase of life when they enter adulthood, 4th house Saturn kids have a lot to heal from. Saturn is a millstone, and you have to untie that weight from your neck in order to ever climb the mountains you want to climb. In some cases, you have to untie it in order to even know that there is a part of you that wants to climb any mountains at all.

It is important for people with Saturn in the 4th house to create appropriate boundaries with their families. In some cases they may remain a source of stress and discomfort, and Saturn requires healthy boundaries. It’s important to moderate how much you take on in general, too – not everything is your responsibility, despite what your childhood may have told you. It’s also super beneficial for people with this placement to protect their home and treat it like a sacred temple.

Once you get there, growing up is often a relief for people with Saturn in the 4th house as your outside begins to match your insides, you begin to believe in your own competence, and you learn how to use the emotional resilience you developed during childhood to actually achieve your dreams and create a better world. Saturn in the 4th house can be alchemized from a restrictive prison or burdensome weight into a sturdy foundation; from depleted soil into a rich, beautiful soil that the tree of your life can grow from steadily.


For parents of kids with Saturn in their 4th
Anytime I talk publicly about placements that often indicate a difficult childhood or strained relationship with one’s family, parents of children with those placements have lots of questions and worries.

I understand that this can be a scary thing to think about! No one wants their kid’s childhood to be anything less than ideal. It’s important to remember that though Saturn in the 4th house is often a challenging placement, there are absolutely exceptions. Not everyone with this placement regards their childhood as difficult.

Secondly, you have control here. You have a say in what happens. You have the opportunity to become the beautifully supportive, wise, solid, reliable Saturnian figure rather than embodying the harsh, cold, or distant side of Saturn.


It’s important that you remain aware of both extremes of Saturn and find the perfect balance between those extremes. Be aware that while it is important that your child learns to take care of themselves, they are still kids and all kids need lots of help, even into adulthood. While it’s important that your kid’s basic survival needs are taken care of, they also need gentle, reliable emotional support too. While you of course want to protect your child, you cannot protect or shield them from everything, and by trying to do so, you may be depriving them of important life lessons and opportunities to build sustaining self-trust. And finally, work on your own sense of responsibility. It’s not uncommon for kids with this placement to have been raised by parents who are irresponsible in one way or another. Instead, embrace the responsibility of adulthood, focus on your own long-term future, and be realistic about what life asks of you