I’ve met a lot, a lot, a lot of Saturn in the third house people who are…you guessed it! Older siblings. Saturn is the planet of maturity and old age. The third house is the house of siblings.

There’s a lot of stereotypes around being an older sibling. You’re way too responsible. Your siblings resent you for being too put together. You do a lot of work that’s taken for granted and you’re expected to just give up personal pursuits for other people’s sake. No one knows how much you suffer because you try your best to keep it together and stay in control.

Not all older siblings are like that. Not all Saturn in the third house people are like that either. In fact, Saturn is a bit contrarian. What does someone do when they are tasked with too much responsibility in their kinship network or community?

One thing that Saturn loves to do is to actually break free by becoming the opposite of whatever it is that people have come to expect. If you expect Saturn to always be cautious, then it will go out of its way to prove its carelessness. If you expect rigidity from Saturn, then it will show you its crass side.

Saturn in the third house people are usually pretty sarcastic. They go out of their way to show you how quietly rebellious they are at all times. They do this because Saturn in the third house of kin means that this is someone who is trying to contest social rules.

Regardless, however, Saturn in the third house does tend to lead. They can’t help it. They raise important issues. They speak about the things that everyone else seems happy to discard. They do the hard tasks that other people forget or put off because they’re always thinking about the group and group cohesion. Saturn in the third house is used to being the person who everyone else can rely on to a certain extent. That’s the weight of Saturn. That’s the responsibility.

The way that Saturn tends to lead is to give voice to discontent. If they’re in a group project? “Our deadline is coming up! We gotta get our shit together.” If they’re mobilizing people towards a goal? They point out what the group hasn’t done and hasn’t paid attention to. If they’re hanging out with friends? Saturn in the third house is really good at pointing out important differences between everyone and making everyone aware of those differences.

Yes, Saturn in the third house can be competitive. Not as much as Mars in the third house. The third house, because it is the house of siblings, is also the house of competition.

A lot of the time, because Saturn tends to have a detached view, people with Saturn in the third house feel like they have one foot out all the time. They might have to lead a group but they don’t really want to. Leadership is pressure and responsibility and who doesn’t want to escape that? That’s why Saturn in the third house can feel like it’s always on the out. These people have more than one friend group. They flit around. They move from circle to circle.

The thing is, Saturn in the third house isn’t actually competitive for its own sake. The burden of being an older sibling type is that you always want to look like you’re doing well to people who are looking up to you. You know that you’re like this pillar of what it means to grow up in their eyes. You show them how to rebel, how to make choices, and how to be cool.

If Saturn in the third house gets competitive and compares itself with what everyone else is doing, it doesn’t do this because it wants to be better than other people. That’s not the point. The point is that, by doing what you’re doing, you’re trying to create an example that younger people can follow. And, the point is that, by the time you’re finished with being a role model, you’re so sick and tired of it that you just want to be yourself.

That’s why Saturn in the third house might make sudden life changes and why it might behave in ways that other people call erratic. You don’t expect reliability from unreliable people—Saturn in the third house is a reliable person. When they behave out of character, then everyone notices.

What I’m trying to say is that, when Saturn in the third house is younger, they try to grow up too fast. They get in these really long term relationships that feel like marriages before they need all that. They’re stressed about retirement in their twenties. They make friends with senior citizens easily because they share the same lifestyle habits as people in their seventies.

Why? Because Saturn in the third house is used to being a bit ahead of everyone else. They’re used to being the older sibling or the oldest member of their friend group or the older sibling in their neighborhood. They have that old sibling thing going on and this means that they have trouble comparing their own timeline to their peers. They think that they have to live a little faster than everyone else.

That’s the pressure. That’s why Saturn in the third house likes to live life on the edge but then go to bed early. That’s why they will sometimes do risky things while taking all of their multivitamins.

The beauty of Saturn is its Benjamin Button-like quality. Saturnians, which you are if your Saturn is very strong, are very serious when they are babies. They become super rebellious teens and then they start to learn the art of play when they get much older.

When Saturn in the third house grows up, it learns to allow other people to take the pressure of being a person off. The pressure is really just social. Saturn is concerned about how you fit in when it is located in the third house. It might have been isolated in the past. It doesn’t want that anymore. It also doesn’t want to be like everyone else—that’s for sure.

I think that Saturn in the third house is actually one of the hardest places for Saturn to be in. The third house is where the Moon receives joy. It’s the house of attachment, connection, and participation. That’s why it’s the house of siblings and kin, because you learn how to be a person around other people with your siblings and your sibling-like people. The third house of the house of your people. Saturn is the planet that promotes the most distance on account of seniority or leadership or just plain old control. That’s why Saturn is the Moon’s nemesis in astrology. When Saturn is located in the house of kin, the Moon is actually the planet that reels back and takes a second look around.

Saturn in the third house is really just about growing into participation. You don’t have to participate in all aspects of society. Rebellion is a form of participation. Saturn in the third house is about making friends with people who are both older and younger and about living at the same time as everyone else. You don’t have to live faster. You won’t be left behind. You get to live on the same timeline as everyone else but grow up at your own rate.

If you have Saturn in the third house, no—you’re not like everyone else. But you’re not alienated either. Fitting in doesn’t mean that you need to conform to expectations and that you have to succumb to social pressure. Fitting in means that you ask other people to make room for you so that the way your life is flexibly shaped can fit. You’ll always be aware that you don’t fit in 100%. That’s normal. Everyone feels that. That’s attachment. It’s always a work in progress.

You don’t have to be a Successful Person to fit in, to be a person with other people. You don’t have to be someone’s role model. If someone idealizes you without your consent, then you are allowed to get angry at that person because idealization robs you of your ability to authentically connect. And that’s what your Saturn in the third house wants—real friends.