Making this post because I'm feeling a fair amount of guilt, but sometimes my feelings trick me so I'm in need of a reality check. Context: I'm 24M, been living on my own for a couple of years and I'm really happy with my independence, so happy that I rarely ask somebody for help. In my country leaving the house before your late 20s is considered premature, and my mother is quite an apprehensive woman, she is almost pissed by the fact that I never ask for her help, even though that's not completely true. My philosophy is that I do not ask for help unless it's completely necessary, I think that being adult means being able to deal with your everyday shit on your own, or at least trying. That includes being able to deal with my money in a responsible way. Anyway, she has retired from work some years ago and has very few things to do during the day, so (e.g.) she always asks me to tell her when I need to go shopping for groceries and stuff like that so that she can help, but I never do, 2 main reasons: first, I'm fine dealing with this stuff on my own and I don't want her to get into it, as I'm concerned that having her deal with my tasks could become an unhealthy habit, both for her and for me; second, I don't like at all how she deals with stuff, after I left the house I realized that I do a lot of stuff differently from her, whether it's buying groceries, cleaning the house, anything. I don't want to go back to a lifestyle that I don't really enjoy. Another thing that kinda pisses me off is that she tries to do/buy things "for me", while really she always does as she pleases. I don't know if she doesn't know my tastes, or just ignores them (I think it's the first, but ain't sure), but this habit has led me to ask her to not buy me anything (or help me) unless I ask her. Normally I wouldn't be so "restrictive", but I feel that what I wear, eat or the way I live it's not really up to her and I don't like the way she sees me. Of course she's my mom, therefore in her eyes I will always be her child, I completely understand that, but I don't mind letting life happen as it is and see where it goes, it's "my turn" after all. I'm at a point that I asked her to not buy me anything for my birthday because truly I don't feel like I need anything, it's not even necessary, at a certain point I even asked her "what's the point in buying me shoes if you are not even certain that I will like them?" but she didn't care, she bought them anyway. As I thought, I don't like them and I really struggled to hide that from her. In conclusion, I feel weird about this overall situation because on one side I think I'm setting a boundary that is necessary to allow me to grow as an adult, but on the other side of the coin I'm afraid that I'm neglecting her something, I can understand she still wants to be a part of my life, but I feel that she tries too hard and It doesn't feel right. So reddit, do your thing, please.