This Thursday at Ultimate HudCo Day, we’re thrilled to welcome Jessica Blankenship, a former journalist, digital media veteran, and the creator of StarChild, a parenting-focused astrology platform that’s as insightful as it is beautifully designed.
Jessica will be offering complimentary astrology sessions throughout the day, bringing her signature mix of humor, heart, and deep astrological knowledge to the HudCo community. Before you meet her, get to know a little more about the brains (and stars) behind StarChild. Beware: she’s an excellent writer, so you may read this whole thing and very much enjoy it.
Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from, and what are some of your favorite interests besides astrology?
I’m originally from Atlanta, and I moved to Brooklyn about eleven years ago as a single mom with a toddler. After a stint in SF (obligatory tech purgatory), I moved to Pleasantville at the end of 2021. I bought this very cool 1960s A-frame house, and renovating it has become one of my favorite long-haul projects. It’s weird and gorgeous and constantly under construction, which feels appropriate. Plus it has space for my two enormous Bernadoodles to live their best feral lives.
I’m still adjusting to suburban life (too many cars, too little passively existing around other people), but I do really love it around here, mostly because of the trees. Outside of astrology and work, I’m a huge art fan — I used to run a gallery and still make a point to stay connected to that world. I’m a big reader. I’m a former journalist. I was in digital media forever as a writer and editor, and I still have a soft spot for media gossip and the slow-motion collapse of that whole industry.
I also spend a lot of my time on advocacy work and volunteering for causes that matter to me, which sounds like a stock answer but is actually how I try to stay tethered to the idea that we’re all responsible for each other. So those are my hobbies: reading, giving my horse-dogs my leftovers, dissociating with a good book, unfinished renovation projects, and obsessing about all kinds of things I don’t have control over.
What inspired you to create StarChild, and what does the name mean to you?
I’ve been using astrology in my parenting since I became a parent — it was never this abstract thing for me, it was just what I reached for when I was trying to make sense of who my kid was and how to actually show up for them. The idea for StarChild came out of that, and once I had the concept in my head, I could see the whole thing instantly. Like, it dropped in fully formed. It made creative, emotional, and logistical sense all at once.
It’s also kind of the culmination of everything I’ve ever done. It brings together writing, branding, product development, business strategy, and the extremely weird joy of solving complicated technical problems to make something that feels simple and intuitive on the surface.
And also — look, the world is a blistering hot pit of misery right now, and getting to spend my time building something that’s creatively fulfilling and helps people connect to their kids and their families and themselves a little more easily feels like contributing something that isn’t wholly useless and exploitative and awful.
Astrology is a gorgeous framework for being thoughtful about how we connect to each other, and since I don’t have the skills or money to solve world hunger or fascism or whatever, I haven’t thought of anything better to spend my energy on than that. I’m a very good mom, a perfectly decent astrologer, and I know how to make a cute and fun little app, so that’s what I can contribute.
What’s the biggest misconception people have about astrology, especially when it comes to parenting?
People think you have to believe in astrology to find it useful, and that’s the part I want to push back on. The thing about astrology is that it gives you this incredibly intricate, weirdly specific language for thinking about yourself and your relationships — and even if you don’t think it’s true, it still makes you look. It makes you actually pause and reflect and say, okay, who am I? And who is this kid I’m raising? And how are we not the same? How is what they need not the same as what I need? How can I show up for them and for myself?
I think one of the most dangerous traps in parenting is this unconscious habit of treating your kid like a mini version of yourself. Like they’re here to play out your unresolved stuff or follow some version of your path. But when you’re reading your kid’s birth chart — when you’re looking at what makes them feel safe, or how they learn, or how they process feelings, or what makes them feel connected to other people — it becomes really obvious that they are their own person. And that’s a big deal. That’s one of the most important realizations you can have as a parent. And if we can act accordingly — this kid is their own person; they don’t belong to me and certainly are not an extension of me — then we really dramatically cut down the error margins on parenting across the board.
Even if you don’t buy the premise of astrology, just engaging with it as a framework will force you to think in a more detailed, less egocentric way. It’s a tool for breaking projection. For examining how you show up in relationship to your kid. For thinking about your own default settings — how you problem-solve, how you react when you’re maxed out, how you communicate, how you love. It’s a mirror, and sometimes it’s a really uncomfortable one, but that’s what makes it valuable.
So yeah, the biggest misconception is that astrology only matters if you “believe” in it. I actually think it’s useful because it forces you into this level of self-reflection, regardless of whether you think the planets have anything to do with our life here on earth.
Favorite local business?
Red Barn Bakery in Irvington. Everything they make is incredible. It’s one of the only places where you can get a fresh green juice and a comically oversized muffin that probably weighs as much as a toddler, and both are equally good. I’m a sucker for a giant scone dunked in coffee with a side of celery juice. I know, complete lunatic behavior, but that’s my favorite breakfast, and I go there as often as I can. It’s cozy, it’s low-key, and everything tastes like someone’s extremely competent hippie aunt made it with love (I said what I said! I’m very corny!).
If someone’s totally new to astrology, what’s the first thing you’d have them look at in their birth chart?
Their rising sign! The rising sign is where everything else in the chart starts to make sense. You can kind of think of the sky as a big circular clock, and it’s broken into twelve “pie slices,” each ruled by a different zodiac sign. Throughout the day, different signs rise over the eastern horizon, and your rising sign is the one that was on the eastern horizon at the exact moment you were born.
Without getting too in the weeds — it’s what organizes your whole chart. It determines which areas of life are associated with which signs, so if you’re trying to read a horoscope or track how the current astrology is showing up in your life, your rising sign is the thing that tells you where it’s all landing. Because if I’m a Leo rising and you’re a Libra rising, the same planetary transit is going to show up in totally different areas of our lives. It’s like we’re both watching the same movie, but from completely different seats in the theater.
Most people know their sun sign — that’s the one based on your birth date, like, “I’m a Sagittarius because I was born in late November” — but most horoscopes are actually written with rising signs in mind. So if you’ve ever read a horoscope that didn’t quite land, it might be because you were reading the wrong one. Try your rising sign instead. Chances are, it’s going to feel way more accurate.
But more than that, your rising sign gives you a huge amount of information about how you show up in the world. It’s the mask you wear, the lens you see through, the way you instinctively react to new people or situations. It’s a huge piece of the puzzle in terms of personality, nervous system wiring, general vibes — and it’s the key to unlocking the rest of your chart. That’s why birth time matters so much in astrology. It tells you your rising sign, and once you have that, you can start to read your chart like a real map.
What are you listening to and reading right now?
Right now, I’m mostly listening to my almost-13-year-old, who’s an actual musical genius. Lately, he’s gotten really into synthesizers. He also happens to have incredible taste in music, which is one of those things I can’t really take credit for as a parent but am still deeply smug about. So I’ve found myself revisiting a lot of my favorites with him.
Our shared playlists are basically a lot of New Order, the Psychedelic Furs, OutKast, Joy Division, Talking Heads, David Bowie, Aphex Twin, Radiohead, OMD, Simple Minds… and lately our shared favorites have been “Topaz” by the B-52s, the new Tyler the Creator album, and Kanye before he lost his mind.
If I’m working, there’s a strong chance at any given time I’m listening to LCD Soundsystem, Boards of Canada, or Phantogram.
As for what I’m reading: I just finished a book that completely gutted and impressed me. It’s called There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone. It’s devastating and beautifully done — one of the most urgent, clear-eyed pieces of journalism I’ve read in a long time. It follows multiple families navigating housing insecurity in gentrifying Atlanta. I didn’t realize until I started it that it was set in Atlanta, which is where I’m from. So it immediately just pulled me back into the emotional fabric of a city that shaped me, and it articulated so many of the changes I’ve watched happen there over the course of my life. Housing insecurity is a deeply personal issue for me — I experienced it as a kid — and this book handles it with real depth and care and precision. It’s a massive bummer, but one I would absolutely force everyone to read if I could.
On the total opposite end of the spectrum, I also read a novel recently called Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte that was hilarious, deranged in a fun way, and absolutely not for anyone with a weak stomach. It’s messy and wild and a little gross but in the exact right way, and you can just tell the author had the best time writing it but also kinda hates himself. So that was a joy. Also The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger, which aside from being some of the most luscious writing I’ve read in ages, quite literally changed how I see the world.
Do you parent your own kid differently because of astrology? What’s one thing you’ve learned about them through their chart?
Yeah, absolutely. My kid and I actually have the same rising sign and the same Moon sign, so there are a lot of ways we’re deeply similar. But that’s also exactly what throws our differences into sharp relief. Like, he has a Gemini Venus and I have a Scorpio Venus. He’s got a Leo Mercury in his first house, I’ve got a Scorpio Mercury in my fourth. I’m a Sagittarius Sun in the fifth house — he’s a Cancer Sun in the twelfth. And I know that’s all very in-the-weeds if you’re not deep in astrology, but the point is: there are these really striking similarities, and then these absolutely foundational differences in how we’re wired.
Take the Sun placement. A twelfth-house Cancer Sun is someone who recharges by being alone. Their core vitality comes from quiet, from retreat, from private space. Cancers are also naturally homebodies, so add those two together and you’ve got someone who really needs to cocoon. Meanwhile, a fifth-house Sagittarius Sun like mine is the exact opposite — I feel most alive when I’m out in the world doing things, creating stuff, laughing, exploring, performing, just… existing loudly. Those are not the same people. And parenting someone who needs the opposite of what you instinctively want for them? That’s a whole thing.
But noticing that is part of what’s been so instructive in the work I do now. Astrology for kids isn’t just adult astrology in miniature. It’s a whole different thing. Kids are still becoming, still forming, still trying things on — and the way you read and interpret astrology at different developmental stages has to account for that. So having a kid whose rising sign matches mine means that we experience the astrology of the moment in the same areas of life, since our charts are structured the same way — but how that actually shows up in each of our lives is totally different. And tracking that is endlessly fascinating, and also super clarifying for the kind of content I’m writing every day.
And more broadly, I just think astrology gives you a reason to pause and ask the questions that matter: What’s happening right now? What’s my kid feeling right now? What do they need from me? What’s going on with me that might be impacting how I’m showing up? Where do I have capacity today, and where don’t I? That’s the kind of self-reflection that makes you a better parent, regardless of what the planets are doing.
Whether you’re writing daily horoscopes like I am, or just reading them in the app, or listening to the audio rundown while you brush your teeth, astrology gives you a consistent prompt to check in. And if all it does is make you pause for five seconds and reflect on your own energy and your kid’s needs before reacting? That’s huge. That’s enough. That’s the point.
Your dream celebrity birth chart to read — who and why?
David Lynch. (Is there any other answer?) Not just because I’m a huge fan, although I am — and his work has probably shaped the way I approach any creative project, whether it’s writing or art or anything else — but also because he died under identical astrological circumstances to when he was born. Like, same configuration in a number of weirdly specific ways. That’s not normal. That’s not a thing that happens. It lends a lot of fuel to the theory that he is, in fact, an alien.
So yeah, if I could sit down with anyone and really dig into their birth chart, it would be him. Obviously, that’s no longer possible (RIP to the realest one). But if I could wave a magic wand and have one of those long, strange, wonderful conversations about the mechanics of identity and creative compulsion and karma and whatever else his chart might be hiding, I’d pick David Lynch. I have a lot of questions for him.
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Meet Jessica on Thursday, May 22, 2025 for Ultimate HudCo Day. Members get in free (check the app to reserve your time with Jessica) and everyone else—buy a day pass here to get all the fun things that day!