You have a job, a home, and a life they did not arrange. You still plan how you will tell them your news. You hear what they would say about the car, the haircut, the decision. Before they visit, you clean for two days. Growing up, the way I got noticed was doing well and staying out of trouble. I think I just kept doing that, long after anybody was checking.
Wanting your parents to be proud of you is one of the most ordinary wishes there is.
This is one shape of a wider pattern. The fuller picture is here: why do I need everyone to like me.
01
What you do for their approval
Much of it may be invisible to them.
You choose with their reaction in mind. You report achievements and leave out the rest. You go quiet on the subjects you know they disapprove of. After a call you replay their tone.
When the praise comes, it may be good for an afternoon. When it doesn't, you set a higher target.
People say you are grown and don't need their permission. You know that.
It can cost you choices that were yours to make. It may also keep the relationship narrow, limited to the parts of you that do well.
02
What the trying may be protecting
"I'm still working for someone who may not even be watching anymore."
It may be their opinion in particular. Under Approval, no one else's praise counts the same, and the work is done for one person. Everyone else in my family has come around. One person hasn't, and that's the one I keep trying to convince.
Read about Approval →"If I'm not producing, I don't know who I am."
It may be the achieving, with their name attached out of habit. Under Output, you would be doing all of it anyway, and they are simply who you report to.
Read about Output →Other rules can be here, and it may be none.
03
What is under the rule
Under Approval, the fear may be that without their verdict you don't know what you are worth. What would answer it is an internal measure that doesn't require ratification.
Under Output, the fear may be that without achievement you don't matter. What would answer it is worth that doesn't require performance.
04
One question that separates them
If you achieved it and they never found out, would it still count?
Yes, and still not enough, is the Output answer. No, barely at all, is the Approval answer.
If you can't say, there is not enough to tell yet. That counts.
A lot of this is not a rule. Calling your parents with good news is love. For Approval, what tells you more is disproportion and duration. This page does not say your parents did anything wrong, and it does not suggest that you confront them, or keep away from them, or do anything about them at all. If the parent has died, some of what you feel may have nothing to do with a rule. If a parent was abusive to you, this page is not the place for that, and licensed mental-health care is the right door.The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233. If tonight is an emergency, call or text 988 (US). This library is not that door.
The question is a piece of subtraction. It can remove one explanation, and that is its whole job.
05
One thing to try this week
Pick one thing you are working toward now.
Write a few lines describing the day it is finished, as you imagine it.
Then read what you wrote and underline each person who appears in it.
Why this library does not put the blame on parents is on Why We Don't Blame Your Parents.