Almost nothing is purely good or bad but a mix of costs and benefits. Your mothers view is one tempered by this realization even if she wouldn't express it this way. Anyone who simply declares that government is purely good or bad has an simplistic and immature view of the world.
There are plenty of things to hate about the government but on the whole it's benefits largely outweigh it's costs. It would be great to increase the benefit and decrease the costs. Each of us has our own set of preferences that conflict with each other individually, regionally, bureaucratically, economically and so forth, making the balance of all these preferences incredibly complex.
You may have disliked the form you had to fill out but you choose to fill that shit out anyway, why? Cost of dealing with the stuff you don't like must have outweighed the perceived benefit of having to deal with something you found irrelevant and annoying.