I'm 20 and about to graduate from college in a week. Naturally, I was thinking about my future. I had ~$4600 from scholarships this last semester and my dad wanted to gift me an $3000, so I decided to think about investing some of it instead of just leaving in my bank account. I learned a little bit about the stock market, and asked my mom about it because she seemed to have an interest in finance & investing. Today, I felt confident enough to try buying something. I set up an account on Charles Schwab and invested ~$1400 in the SCHB ETF since it was diversified and low-cost.
Then I told my mom about it and she took the news very badly. She told me she wasn't sure what an ETF was and questioned why I didn't just buy regular stocks. I showed her the SCHB ETF and she told me that it's flat because it tracks the broad US market & I would have been better off keeping in the bank. My mom also told me that she and my dad were sentimentally against Charles Schwab as a brokerage service, which I found confusing and surprising because when I had asked them about stocks they repeatedly mentioned them without any negative connotations. She told me I should have used Principal instead and asked me if I had really done my research on picking the best brokerage service. I said that I had looked at Schwab, Vanguard, and Fidelity, but ultimately decided Schwab was best for me even if it didn't allow fractional shares. Even though she had mentioned Principal when talking about her retirement, I admit I did not consider them.
She wished that I had let her and my dad have more input on what I buying and that I had waited after my graduation. I did tell her about SOXQ too and she was more receptive to that, but told me to refrain from investing more money. She said that I was sneaky and did not consider the interests of the family as a whole. I did not mean to deceive my mom, but unfortunately it is true that I was only thinking about myself. Now that I reflect upon my actions, I realized that I may have been too cavalier with my money and probably would have wound up buying riskier stocks later if I did not have this conversation. I knew my parents had bad experiences with investing, and that's why they didn't want me to rush into this.
I offered to sell SCHB and to use whatever brokerage service they recommended, but my mom said that I can't just buy & sell like that and I had to consider taxes. I feel very ashamed of my actions today and I've betrayed my family's trust. What am I supposed to do now? I think I got in over my head and can't be trusted with money yet. When would I know that I am ready to start investing independently?