I (F21) have recently been told my mum — in the middle of another fight — to stop acting so immature, which she described as having exaggerated facial expressions, gesturing a lot and smiling weirdly. Mum said it's really annoying and no one can take me seriously.

The thing is, I really like myself the way I am, I think being expressive is not necessarily bad, so I told my mum what she said is basically an insult. To which mum said that I probably consider myself a perfect person (well no) and I can't take any criticism and that she's also saying this with the best of intentions since she only wants me to become a better version of myself.

I told her I don't need that. I like myself the way I currently am. Which my mum called devolution.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for self-improving, I just don't think you can do this just because someone (be it your mum or anybody else) told so. I just can't change my whole personality in the blink of an eye and I don't want to. I like being expressive, smiling a lot and rolling my eyes (in decent amounts ofc).

But is it really that annoying? Mum believes that it's objectively childish and irritating. I think that's just her opinion. But I also don't wanna be universally disliked. It's not like I'm too loud, insensitive or anything, I actually consider myself quite good at reading the atmosphere and keeping silence whenever necessary — it's just the mannerisms. Like I said, I tend to smile a lot (though mum thinks it's fake), move my eyes (if that makes sense lol), give 'looks' and I can gesture sometimes when I tell a story or something. Is it annoying? In need of an unbiased opinion.

EDIT: we have long made up but didn't really clarify this moment so I've been thinking about it a lot

EDIT: please refrain from insulting my mum i love her yk