Personal Experience

Today, I faced some conflict with my mom. My daughter is eight years old and currently resides with my mother while I go to school and work more than full time. I take my daughter on the weekends along with my nephew, who also lives with my mom. I take both of them in order to give my mom a break since she has them all week. Today, I was not able to take my nephew because I wanted to spend some one-on-one time with my daughter. When my daughter learned that he was not going coming with us, she did not want to go with me. I discussed this with my mom and my mom encouraged me to leave both of them with her to avoid them having "separation anxiety" from each other. However, I feel that that was inappropriate since I wanted to spend time with my daughter. After many phone calls back and forth, I felt compelled to go over to her house and have a discussion with my mom and explain that she needs to be more supportive. I explained to my mom that I felt she was being unsupportive of me trying to spend time with my daughter since the only quality time I have with my daughter is on the weekend. Even though I visit during the week in the evenings, that is not enough for maintaining a solid relationship with my daughter. My mom listened and understood where I was coming from and agreed that she should have been more supportive in of my time with my daughter. We were able to resolve the problem and establish a more consistent schedule and mutual understanding of each of our roles in the care of my daughter.