Mother daughter power struggle

QUESTION: On New Years Eve, my grandkids were coming to spend the night. My daughter (in her 40s) was going to go out, but her plans changed and she decided to catch up on some sleep.

My power went out just before she arrived with the kids. No phone, no water, no electricity.

The kids decided not to stay. I asked my daughter to call the hydro company when she got home. She said “No. I don’t want to.”

I said, “it’s dark and I can’t see the number.” She answered, “You can call them on the cell.”

I explained that I wanted to save the cellphone power in case of an emergency, but it was again, “No.”

I’m still not talking to her. I think she was very rude. She thinks what she did was perfectly OK. What do you think? — No Power

ANSWER: I’d think that standoff between you was a mother-daughter power struggle that’s had years of practice.

It’s hard to stop that pattern unless one of you changes the initiating action or the response.

Though you did nothing wrong, I believe that for the sake of your relationship with your grandchildren, and for this to not keep happening, any change has to come from you.

Your daughter reacted as if given an order. She’s become used to responding negatively to you. She also thinks you can take care of yourself, so dismissed your fear of being stuck in the dark.

Meanwhile, her “changed plans” on New Year’s Eve may have put her in a bad mood.

If you two saw each other more as equal adults, you might’ve guessed that she’d been disappointed on that special night. You’d both more easily have dealt with the hydro problem together.

Without change, you can stay distant and lose touch with the kids, or return to this same unhealthy dynamic.

Or, you can be the more flexible person who’s willing to try something different. Start with making contact, letting this incident go, and consulting her opinion on situations that arise. Hopefully, she’ll stop relying on rudeness to show her independence from you. It’s worth a try.

Ellie Tesher is a Toronto-based advice columnist. This column appears weekdays in The Herald.