Linda Goodman's Sun Signs (24 page)

These youngsters have more emotional needs than Pisces boys and girls. Much more than with any other children,
the strongest influence on Cancerians is always the early home environment
From infancy through the teens, young crabs are tremendously dependent on the reactions of their parents and their brothers and sisters. Your lunar child may be too shy to express his real inner desires, but he secretly wants to be made over, cuddled and adored. If he doesn't get attention and approval from his family, relatives and friends, the rejection can simply crush him. I have a close friend who was born in July. Late one night in her kitchen (where else?), we were talking about her childhood.

She told me, “When I was a little girl in grade school, my parents gave me ten or fifteen cents a week to spend. But I never spent it. I saved it, so I could give a prize.”

“For what?” I asked her.

A wistful look passed across her wonderfully mobile features. “Well, I used to offer fifty cents at the end of each month to the friend who treated me the nicest.”

At first I was amused, and started to remind her of all the candy and treats she had missed by passing out her entire allowance for kind treatment, but something in her eyes changed my mind.

Although your young Cancerian may briefly turn into a rebel without a cause in adolescence, during his tender years, the little crab is usually easy to manage and discipline. His inner life is very real to him, and he'll happily play by himself for many hours. He may even have an invisible playmate called something like Boris or Betty, who helps him make mud pies, plant imaginary flowers or play cowboy and Indian. The make-believe Boris or Betty are always well-behaved and courteous. They will always let the Cancer youngster win, and they'll give in to his desire to be a gentle leader without a murmur. Sometimes these imaginary playmates will disappear for weeks at a time, but they'll return as soon as a real, live neighborhood chum or schoolmate wounds those little lunar feelings or bosses the moon child around too much. As docile and quiet as most Cancerians are, Cancer is a cardinal Sun sign of leadership. Despite their tender emotions and gentle manners, they are not followers. There's a great deal of independent thinking and individualism.

If your offspring follows the pattern of most July children, he'll get his way and be slightly spoiled around the edges. It's the squeaky hinge that gets the most oil. He won't exactly squeak, but he can get mighty weepy when he's ignored or treated harshly. Talk about tears! A moon child can cry rivers and flood a room. It's as if someone left the kitchen spigots running. If all that dampness doesn't get him the tender sympathy he must have for healthy emotions, the little Cancerian boy or girl will grow up into a dry-eyed adult with a barren heart, unable to give or receive love easily—seeking solitude, forming very few warm friendships—and become a recluse in old age.

When such a sensitive little crab is in your care, it's really urgent to laugh and cry with him and to calm his fears. He'll have a whole passel of them. Your own lunar child may not have each one on the list, but he's sure to have quite a few. He can be afraid to go to sleep in the dark without a soft night light, afraid of fire and matches, afraid of fast cars and loud noises. He can fear strangers, large animals, bright lights, food he's never tasted before, lightning and thunder.

Lots of young loony-birds get the blues when it rains. A spring or fall shower can do strange things to the inner nature. It can make him suddenly want to write a poem, paint a picture or make music. At other times, it can cause him to hide his frightened little head under the bedspread, while his bottom half protrudes and trembles visibly.

This child requires much emotional empathy to develop his fine, loving, artistic and creative qualities. If it is given wholeheartedly in his formative years, it will help him grow into a patient, generous, quietly confident and open-hearted adult. If attentive understanding is denied him, his natural compassion and gentleness may be warped and twisted into self-pity and bitter, silent brooding. Fear, unless coped with early, can become illogical prejudice and hatred. Little crabs who have been stunted in their emotional growth sometimes turn into suspicious snappers, often revengeful and even suicidal. At best, these moody, unhappy men and women lead sad, uneventful lives, unless they make a dramatic decision to bury themselves in building a financial empire or developing a latent talent. Either one can mercifully replace the love and affection withheld from the gentle lunar heart when it was the most vulnerable—in childhood.

It can't be emphasized enough that these sensitive children can imagine hurts or slights, and dream up a rejection which never existed. Special care has to be taken to convince them that they're good, smart, pretty, handsome, loved and wanted. Many parents sense this, which is why lots of little crabs are pampered so much at home that they get quite a shock as adults when they discover the world takes a cool, disinterested view of their personal desires. No wonder so many Cancerians fondly remember Mama and practically build a shrine to her as they grow older. No one else will ever again
care
quite so much. The big question with a moon child is always whether to be overly firm and warp him, or overly permissive and spoil him. Finding the middle road is never easy, and the problem can keep you up a few nights. The keyword is: relax. Love usually finds the way. The best formula is a good old-fashioned spanking when he needs it, with plenty of hugs and kisses and lots of physical expressions of affection at all other times.

Teachers normally find the Cancerian boys and girls whizzes in history. They seldom forget dates or events. That's because, thanks to their mirror-like sensitivity, they can read about something that happened years ago, and almost believe they were there. If Paul Revere, Thomas Jefferson, or Abraham Lincoln themselves could return and tell their stories, they probably wouldn't be recounted with much more color than the typical young Cancerian uses when he discusses the happenings of the dim and dusty past. It's as if they actually saw the Battle of Lexington, the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the shot fired on Fort Sumter. There's hardly a detail they can't imagine. It's easy to see why so many of these sensitive boys and girls go on the stage, become creative photographers or follow a distinguished career in music or art. Instructors of the young lunar mind may now and then complain of stubbornness or daydreaming, but it's not often that either failing becomes pronounced enough to be really troublesome. There may be some exaggerating. The boy may describe the ordeal of being attacked in the woods by a dangerous bear to explain some scratches caused by a fall from his own front porch. The girl may give a sad recital of how she was locked out with no supper by cruel parents, after what was only a mild argument with her family. But a few tall tales can be expected when you consider the strong mental impressions created by reading adventure stories with the lunar imagination. When there's real heartache, instead of make-believe tragedy, the typical Cancerian child will normally remain quiet and decline to speak about it. There's an old Chinese proverb: “He who is really hurt—doesn't talk.”

Like the Libran child, happy Cancerian youngsters can run up the family food bill to fantastic proportions and soothing hurt feelings caused by the nickname Fatty is common. If there's a lot of brooding or nervousness, the nickname may be Skinny. It's best to bypass all nicknames with moon children. They should never be teased.

Most young crabs look forward to working for pay, and they'll scour the neighborhood for odd jobs. Your Cancer child will begin early to cut grass, sweep leaves and babysit. He'll return bottles for refunds, help hang out the laundry, assist the trash men, sell lemonade at the curb, or anything else he can think of that will make his pockets jingle. The pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters—and finally the dollars he makes will be carefully accounted for, and a good portion of them saved. After a while, you may be able to save some yourself—on his allowance. He'll probably supply his own spending money sooner than other children, and be proud of it. You'll find him easy on your pocketbook in many ways. These children often work their way through college. The boys will have a healthy curiosity about the business world. The girls will be efficient in cash matters, too, but they'll also spend lots of time with their dolls and baking brownies, practicing to be a mother some day.

The Cancer child will keep you amused with his jokes and his contagious laugh. He can make funny faces that look like Halloween masks, and he sees the humor in every facet of the human parade as it passes. Give him, if possible, a little plot of earth he can call his own, where he can plant things with his green thumb and watch them grow. He'll be tenderly concerned with relatives who are ill, financial emergencies in the family, and the difficulties of his friends and neighbors. Lunar youngsters love books about heroic people who braved hardships to do great deeds, and they'll be especially gentle and sympathetic with animals. But if they feel cruelly treated themselves, they may pass on the cruelty, or rather, reflect it to others smaller than themselves in a sort of “kick the cat” progression. Young crabs can live up to the name and be quite crabby, but such moods seldom last more than a few hours, before they're replaced by a lovable loony grin.

As you turn off the lamps at bed time, you may wonder, as all parents do about a day in the not too far distant future when the little head that keeps popping up “for one more drink of water” will be missing. The house will be still then, and empty of his alternating tears and laughter, after the funny, imaginative little crab crawls away to raise his own family. Will he forget? Not if he was born in late June or July. Years can go by, and he may sail on distant seas, but you can keep his toy dinosaur—the one you gave him that Saturday afternoon after you quarreled—on his dresser. And you can leave her rag doll in its place on the window seat. Your moon child will come home again many times throughout every tomorrow—to meet old memories and return to the past. No matter how many miles separate him from yesterday, anywhere he lives is always handy to home. Keep his bedroom intact.

After learning about the Cancerian sense of humor, you may have the impression that the office of a Cancer boss is a real fun place, with everything except confetti and a sommelier to serve champagne. The employees will all be straight men, and the lunar executive is the stand-up comic with the clever one-liners. It will be like going to work in a nightclub every day. Well, no—not exactly.

If you work for a TV or movie funnyman or woman, all that just might apply. Anywhere else, you'd best dust the confetti off your shoulder, straighten your tie and forget the jokes. The serious, hard-working Cancerian executive doesn't go for hilarity on the job. Her working humor can consist of anything from laughing at an over-confident competitor falling on his face to a faint chuckle when you ask her to double your salary before you have proved yourself. Both of these situations will strike her funny ribs and bring a wide grin. Nothing else will arouse much mirth or many giggles. The humor is still there, beneath his crisp business face and her tailored suit, but it will be used sparingly on the job. Most of her laughs at work will be saved for the human comedy of errors, or to ease someone's nervousness, and the tone will usually be kindly. Seven hours and fifty-nine minutes out of every eight working hours, however, will be humorless, even grim.

I don't mean to frighten you into thinking she's a female version of Simon Legree (though there are a few Cancerian bosses of that type scattered around the world). It's just that your job under a Cancer boss will be more secure if you see that your trousers are creased, your hair is combed, and your brain is operating at a sharp level, than if you tell a few fast ones, happily trying to play second banana. The top banana you're trying to impress is off duty in the humor mill while she sits behind that polished mahogany desk, with her father's picture on one side, and the group picture of his family on the other. Can you imagine what would have happened to one of Donald Rumsfeld's underlings if he pulled the one about “who was that lady I saw you with last night” in the middle of a meeting? I know an employee who made a serious error in quoting a shipping date to a valued client. When his Cancerian superior called him in for an accounting, prepared to be kind, he cheerfully said, “Boss, I sincerely regret my stupidity, and if you'll give me a couple of days, I'm sure I can come up with several excellent excuses!” He would have been a scream in old-time vaudeville, but he got the hook from his unamused Cancer employer.

Hopefully, you will profit from the large egg that employee laid at his last performance. The Cancer boss is in business for one purpose only. To make money. Period. Money. It's made of green and black printed paper, and it has different numbers in the upper corners, signifying how much power, prestige, and luxury it will buy. You trade it for hard work. The harder you work, the more pieces of this green and black printed paper you get and the larger the numbers are in the upper corners. That's her philosophy, in a crab shell. It would be wise to make it yours.

So you think she's a little icy, do you? Maybe if he relaxed more, and stopped being so strict about goofing off, and created a friendlier atmosphere, he would not only be more successful, he would be happier, too. Has that occurred to you? Glance at a copy of
Who's Who in Finance and Business.
The summer birthdays will be the heaviest, and July will top them all. Then take another look at the names of the Cancerians at the end of “How To Recognize” this Sun sign. She must be doing something right.