Definition: Given a real-life anecdote of a complex ethical situation, generate a suitable title that describes the main event/root cause of the situation. Imagine that the given text is a social media post, and you have to write the title of the post, so the users can decide to read the main text or not.
Input: This scenario isn't as nearly as dramatic as a lot of others I've read, but I can't stop thinking about it and feeling guilty.

Back info:

First of all, I'm 23 and still live at home- don't judge please, it's not unusual here in Germany since our education system is a little different and a lot of us including me still go to job training at that age, which, in my case, doesn't pay you any money, so I can't afford my own place yet and my parents often times said they love having me around and don't even really want me to move out yet. For real, I would actually LOVE to have my own place and I'm saving up for it. Not sure if that's too important to the story, I just want you to know that I didn't act like this because I'm "going through puberty and my hormones are going crazy and mothers and daughters always argue at that age". Sadly I can't use the hormones excuse anymore lol.

This is where the story begins:

Two days ago, my mom and I went grocery shopping together; no big deal for others, but for us, it's kind of a mother-daughter-bonding thing, where we talk about anything and everything and I just love it. After we had everything we needed, she asked me if we should go to my favourite shopping center.

She had actually had other plans on this day, so it was really sweet of her to offer it and I sincerely appreciated it. When we were there, I saw some watches in the store we were in. I don't own a phone anymore and thought it would be a good idea to buy one of them. I picked one, my mom saw it and looked at me like I was crazy. In case anyone is wondering, I was gonna pay for it and my mom knew that too, I wasn't asking or expecting her to buy it for me, but she just started ranting about how ugly that watch was and asked if I was actually serious and told me to put it back. My mom is a great person and she's always there for me, but when I wear or buy something she doesn't like, she and my dad both get extremely obnoxious and judgmental and scornful about it, sometimes I feel like they're laughing at me, and it has always made me feel terrible about myself.

So even though my mom took some time out of her day to take her adult daughter to the shopping center, and even though she clearly did this to spend time with me, I snapped at her with an equally condescending tone while starting to walk away from her: "You really could have said this in a different way." She walked after me and apologized, but I was still angry because this has been building up inside of me for a while, so I yet again snapped: "You ALWAYS do this. ALWAYS. You and dad make fun of me for everything that I like and it makes me feel like shit."

She said "You know we don't mean it like that, we didn't want to hurt you", and I responded "No, I really don't. I don't care how you mean it, all I know is that it feels god awful to me and it hurts like hell every single time. You ruin everything that I like, there are so many things that I used to love that I can't wear anymore because I know you'll ridicule me for it." I walked away from her without looking back.

What I said may have been an exaggeration because it doesn't really happen that often; it's just that it leaves an impact every time it happens. My parents' opinion of me really, REALLY matters to me even as an adult, so seeing them judge me the way my bullies used to really hurts. I don't know, I have pretty thin skin in general, something that I should probably work on.

She got really quiet after I said this and stopped walking after me and I could tell she felt terrible. Needless to say, our shopping trip was cut short; we wordlessly left the store and got back into the car. After a long silence, she started to talk and tried to justify her talking to me like this as "I understand you're upset, but I just want to give you feedback, how else am I supposed to do that?"

I yet again snapped: "Just tell me that you don't like it, but that I'm free to wear it, that's literally all you have to say." After that, we were silent again. At home, she tried to make light of the situation and said "Tomorrow you'll be thankful about me preventing you from buying that watch", but I wasn't having it and said "I may not be angry anymore by tomorrow, but I sure as hell won't be thankful for it", then I disappeared into my room.

About half an hour later my mom came into my room and gave me a speech about how she's sorry and that she's only like this because she sometimes forgets that I'm a young woman now and not her little girl anymore and that I can make my own decisions, and she also said she feels awful for making me feel this way and that hurting someone you love is a terrible feeling. Usually my mom never apologizes like this, so I could tell this truly must have been a big thing to her. It made me cry and we hugged and made up, so this should have been the end of it, but I just can't stop thinking about the fact that I made my wonderful mom feel so bad about herself, and that I made this whole thing that is so special to me so awkward. I legit want to cry when I think about all of this, but since she already apologized and the whole thing is resolved, I don't know what I can do to fix it, or if there's even a need for me to fix anything, because I don't know if I was the asshole in this situation or if my reaction was understandable...


snapping at my mom because I felt like she was ridiculing me