Tom, I'm sorry to hear that you got that reaction from your mother, but I sympathize with your situation. Right up until the day she died my mother would sometimes just randomly go out of her way to provoke me. In later years it wasn't about the beard, but when I was younger the beard was definitely a part of it.

I first grew a beard in 1969 during the heart of the 1960s/70s culture wars. In those days a beard showed that you were on the side of the counterculture, hippies, war protesters, "long-hairs", etc. That changed in, what, the 1980s? So now you can't tell a guy's politics by whether he has a beard. My 1960s self would really be puzzled by the Duck Dynasty guys!

The beard was a clear outward sign that my mother and I were on opposite sides in that culture war and she wasn't going to forgive me.