Will I ever feel like a "grown up"?

On Monday night, we bought a TV.  It's a sexy 40" Sony Bravia that we got for a song.  We're both really happy with it and about it.  However, I'm worried about telling anyone IRL.  Chebbar still isn't working and now we're very seriously (as in pretty much a done deal) looking at him going to school for a year and a half.  Plus, hello?  Christmas?  RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER.

So.

Probably not the best decision we could have made.  But!  We sat down, looked at our savings account/income/budget, and waited 24 hours before making a decision which we did not take lightly.  All in all, we're both okay with the choice we made, even if it means we don't buy Christmas gifts for each other this year (we'll still be able to afford them, but this just gives us extra leeway). 

However.

I have issues with what other people think of me (even if I fervently wish I didn't), specifically my mother, and particularly where money is concerned.  It's been a bone of contention since I was 16 and she took away my debit card because I was spending my paycheque too easily/quickly/frivolously (totally true, but hot DAMN did it piss me off).  And again when I was 17 and purchased contact lenses for myself causing her to cease speaking to me for a week (that one was just plain bullshit: I swear to jeebus she was jealous that I could afford them and she couldn't).  Oh, and every. single. time. after that that I felt the need to lie about when I bought a particular shirt, or waited until she was out of the house to sneak something in from the trunk of my car.

To be fair, part of it was her desire to see me do better than she had: we were on welfare a couple of times when I was growing up.  And if it weren't for her, I very likely wouldn't have the budgeting skills that allow us to purchase big ticket items like new TVs.  But some of it is a matter of jealousy and is accompanied with a healthy serving of judgement, which only serves to make me feel like that chastened 16-year old again.

This exasperates Chebbar because he's very much of the "I'm an adult and I can make the decisions I want, other people's opinions be damned" mindset who has no trouble ignoring potential judgement -- he has a hard time wrapping his head around why it bothers me so much.  Don't get me wrong: I hate it, too.  When I was a teen, Other People's Opinions of me were a big freaking deal.  Then I went through a phase in my early to mid-twenties where I developed a GREAT I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude (seriously, it was healthy for me).  Unfortunately, it seems that the older I get, the more I regress: I haven't gone all the way back to where I care what strangers think about me, but what my friends and family -- especially my mother -- carries far too much weight.

I hate it.  Will I ever get (back) to a point where I feel adult enough to make a decision without worrying about what my mommy is going to think?  Because at 31, this is ridiculous.