>>938319920
Your parents say they're proud of you because they are proud of you. They used to wipe your ass. They used to spoon-feed you slurries with a spoon. They invested thousands of hours into you before you could even string together a sequence of words they could understand. They watched you go from dumber-than-a-dog to what you are today: a human being that is at least capable of basic function. Whenever you accomplish anything greater than that, they really are impressed by it.

Your inner pessimism can try to demean and downplay it by saying that your parents have low standards, or that they only think that way because of the biology of parenthood, or a thousand other excuses. But that still doesn't change one fact: They say they're proud of you because they really are proud of you.