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I'd also just feel super immature if I got one because my mom would always tell me that I need to grow up and not keep wanting stuffed animals. She told me that other people would laugh at me if they knew I had one.
So it's like I do want one. I have a specific one offline that I've been tempted to order for a while now but I haven't because I keep telling myself I need to be an adult and it is a waste of money.
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When bad things happen to children, they tend to assume that the same things will happen again as adults. And thus they tend to give the same responses as adults that they gave as children--even though the situation has changed.
So with regard to stuffed animals, you were guilted and shamed by your mother about them. But now you have the freedom to make your own choice. You have the freedom to have a stuffed animal.
I think that tinyrabbit spoke for the vast majority here, if not for all of us, in saying that it is okay to have stuffed animals. I have a 22-year-old son who has a stuffed animal at college with him. I am much much older than that and I have stuffed pandas, a stuffed dog, plus a stuffed platypus and a stuffed axolotl that a friend of mine made for me
. My daughter has probably 15 stuffed animals at college with her. Her friends have stuffed animals.
I think that it is okay to want one, and I also see getting a stuffed animal as a step towards freeing yourself internally from your mother's mistaken and destructive opinions.
It is okay to want a stuffed animal. It is okay to be yourself.