I honestly don't know why it makes me so uncomfortable, other than I've shied away from that path and went my own way, but there are times when I still struggle with letting go of old beliefs (which I've posted about before), and I think it's just makes me feel... weird... I guess... when she says it.
There is a very strong abuse history between my mother and I, and we haven't had much of a great relationship until the last few years when I finally moved away from my home town... growing up though, I was never good enough, never did this or that, wasn't "girly" enough, I was always compared to my little sister, among other things and we've worked to rebuild our relationship, which we are still in the process of doing. I'm in therapy for what I went through as a kid, so I don't know if it's really an approval thing or not, but I do know I've felt like a disappointment my entire life. My mother flipped back and forth between telling me how proud she was of me for my accomplishments and telling me I was the worst daughter ever, and looking back on it, I really think it depended on her stress level and her sobriety when it came to how she felt about me on any given day. She wasn't really this way with my brothers or sister, possibly because they weren't blood related and I was her only biological daughter (that's how I've always felt anyways)... an example would be when I became a cop... on a good day, she was so proud of me for being a police officer and helping people, on a bad day, I was a coward who hid behind my badge and just did it because I was bullied in high school... things like that are how back and forth she is.
When she first asked me about being pagan, I was open with her and she said she wouldn't judge me and would love me all the same, but every time I spoke to her after that, it was, "You need to put down the tarot cards and pick up a bible" or something similar... then she stopped for a while and she started up with this a few days ago. So it's new territory and I'm not really sure how to handle it, it just makes me feel uncomfortable and I really don't want to hurt her feelings by saying something to her about it.