Trust-fund mother guilts grown child for accepting help

How do I handle my mom always hanging money over my head, when she herself is a trust-fund daughter?

My mom will take any opportunity to guilt me about money she spends “for me” when I haven’t asked her to, yet she herself has never had an income and has lived off my grandfather’s fortune, which he left to her. If I even slightly mention this, she acts completely offended.

I am a young professional carving my own way, and my reality makes me increasingly tired of this dynamic. What would you do? Why can’t she see how hypocritical her behavior is?

Your reality, I’d guess, makes her ask questions of herself that she’d rather not be asking.

Could she do what you’re doing if she had to? Could she “carve her own way?” Where would she be had all that money not just dropped in her lap?

She knows she has always had a cushion. She knows the way you’re exploring and testing yourself is alien to her, having never faced that challenge. She knows you know both these things about her.

Self-doubt is an uncomfortable place to sit. This “why” is a sidebar to the “what” of these guilt-trips. Guilt-tripping isn’t just something someone does to you. guilt is a transaction. You have to take part. You have to either feel guilty or care that she thinks you should.

The way to preempt these reactions is either to stop accepting her money or stop engaging with her complaints.