Parents in BaZi: Direct Resource Is Your Mother, Indirect Wealth Your Father
In BaZi, what produces me is Resource, so the mother is Direct Resource. The father is the mother's partner, and in the five elements he is the side that controls Resource, so the father is Indirect Wealth. Add the year and month pillars, the two Parents Palaces, and you have the basic frame for reading your bond with your parents.
How the mother and father stars appear in charts
| State | Mother star (Direct Resource) | Father star (Indirect Wealth) | How to read it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shows on a stem | 27.1% | 26.8% | A very visible role; the influence is direct and clear |
| Only hidden in a branch | 44.4% | 47.6% | The bond is there but understated, often drawn out by a particular luck pillar |
| Absent from all four pillars | 28.6% | 25.6% | A lighter presence, which is not the same as no bond |
| Is a favorable element | 47.5% | 19.5% | The relationship is more often a help |
How we counted: our engine cast one chart for every day from 1960 to 2005, with the birth hour drawn by a fixed-seed random sample, 16,802 charts in all.
The mother star is favorable more than twice as often as the father star. The reason lies in the structure of the elements, not in the parents. Weak Day Masters outnumber strong ones, and Resource feeds the Day Master, so it is often favorable; Indirect Wealth costs the Day Master effort to control, so it more often ends up unfavorable. The figure describes how charts are built, not whose parents are better.
The year and month pillars: the Parents Palaces
The year pillar stands for ancestors and elders, and for parents too; the month pillar stands for parents and siblings, the home you grew up in. When the mother or father star sits in the year or month pillar, parents usually weigh heavily in your upbringing; when it sits in the hour pillar, it is sometimes read as a bond that becomes more visible in the second half of life. The month pillar is also the month command, the single biggest factor in how strong the whole chart is, which is why the family you grew up in is treated as so central to a person's basic makeup.
Too much Resource, and Wealth against Resource: two common sayings
| Saying | Structure | A closer reading |
|---|---|---|
| "A doting mother smothers the child" | Too much Resource (the mother star) | Cared for so much and so thoroughly that there is little chance to strike out alone; for favorable elements, Wealth is often used as the remedy |
| "Wealth damages the seal" | Wealth (the father star) and Resource (the mother star) evenly matched and in conflict | A pull between "earning a living" and "caring and raising" in the household; it does not mean the parents fight |
"A doting mother smothers the child" belongs to illness and remedy, and "Wealth damages the seal" is the kind of clash that the bridging element deals with. Both describe structure; applied to a real family, they still need to be read with favorable elements and luck pillars.
Spouse Palace clashing the Parents Palace
About 8.4% of charts have the day branch (Spouse Palace) clashing the month branch (Parents Palace). The common reading: after marriage, the new household and the family you grew up in move at different paces, and if you live together or see each other often, it takes some adjusting and some boundaries. It is a very ordinary structure, found in roughly one person in twelve, and nothing to treat as a bad omen.
Look up your six relations: where each star sits, how the palaces interact
Enter your Gregorian birth date and sex (the spouse and children stars differ for men and women) to see where the stars for your parents, siblings, spouse and children sit in the Four Pillars, whether each is favorable, and how the pillar palaces clash or combine with your Spouse Palace. Everything is calculated in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
Uses your Gregorian birth date, with the day changing at 11 p.m. Without a birth hour, the hour pillar (the Children Palace) cannot be read.
A straight word: the six relations show the shape of a bond, not a verdict
In BaZi, the six relations describe how present a family member is in your chart, how the two of you tend to interact, and which issues that relationship is more likely to run into. A chart cannot tell you what kind of people your parents are, and it cannot decide whether you and your family will get along; that comes down to choices and effort on both sides. If you are facing a hard family situation, turn first to people you trust or to professional help. Everything on this site is for reference and entertainment.
Want to see how you relate to your parents?
The parents section of the in-depth reading looks at how strong your Resource star is and describes your bond with parents, elders and bosses, and what matters most in those relationships.
Parents in BaZi FAQ
Which star is the mother and which is the father in BaZi?
Direct Resource is the mother and Indirect Wealth is the father, the same for men and women. By position, the year and month pillars are the Parents Palaces.
Why does Indirect Wealth stand for the father?
Your mother gave birth to you, so she is Resource. Your father is your mother's partner, and in the five elements he is the side that controls Resource, which is Wealth. The classical rule assigns Indirect Wealth to the father.
If I have no father star, does that mean a weak bond with my father?
No. In our sample about 25.6% of people have no Indirect Wealth anywhere in the four pillars. It only means the father has a lighter presence in the chart; the palaces, luck pillars and annual pillars can all bring that bond forward.
What does it mean when the day branch clashes the month branch?
The Spouse Palace clashes the Parents Palace. A common reading is that the household you build and the family you grew up in move at different paces and need some adjusting and boundaries. About 8.4% of charts have this; it is perfectly ordinary.