Be Proud…of Yourself!

(An earlier version of this essay appeared in Aletheia Today Magazine's Thoughts While Shaving Blog, 6/8/2023. It has been substantially rewritten for this issue.)

It’s what every child longs to hear. It trumps I love you by a mile – 5 simple words that satisfy our need for Identity, that reinforce our sense of Belonging, and that affirm our Potency. It’s a heady cocktail…especially for underage drinkers.

But things are not always as they seem! This Identity is actually a disguise, designed to fool you if no one else. This Belonging is a species of indentured servitude, and this Potency is robotic.

When someone says, “I’m proud of you,” it expresses the speaker’s satisfaction or pleasure at some thing you’re being or some thing you’ve done. Most parents won’t say, “Ok, now I can love you!” But those same parents are perfectly willing to say exactly that, provided the language is encrypted. I’m proud of you is code for Now you’ve truly earned my life. 

Quoting the Torah, Jesus famously said, “Love your neighbor as yourself!” The key here is the word ‘as’. Jesus is not asking us to love our neighbor in the same way and to the same degree that we love ourselves; Jesus is asking us to expand our concept of ‘self’ so that we can see ourselves in others.

It is hard for me to see myself in the 20 something stoner on my street who blares his heavy metal music at all hours. On the other hand, It is easy, too easy, for me to see myself in my children. “Watching Scotty grow” becomes watching myself at his age. What is a spiritual exercise in one context becomes neurotic behavior in another.

Parenthood is a time machine. Parenting is how we imagine we can correct the mistakes of the past to promote a better ‘future present’; but to the contrary, parenting most often perpetuates those same mistakes, sometimes compounding them. 

This house of cards became clear to me when a friend’s spouse said off-handedly one day, “Ben is nothing Tom could ever love.” At the time, Tom was my best friend, and Ben was his beautiful 5 year old son, who BTW, Tom absolutely adored.

Her chilling comment shone a spotlight on the Parental Contract: Children are not entitled to love; they must earn it by making themselves loveable in the eyes of their caretakers and kids learn early that those caretakers love to be imitated.  

It gets much worse. Many parents expect their children to accomplish what they couldn’t. If Dad topped out at high school level football, Junior is expected to play college ball. If Mom teaches in a primary school, Missy is on track for a university professorship. In place of the Army’s iconic recruiting meme, we say, “Be all that I wasn’t able to be!” It’s a heavy burden for any child.

Be honest, when a child matches or surpasses something you’re proud of in and for yourself, are you not apt to say, “I’m proud of you” to that child? But you have nothing to be proud of! Whatever your child did or did not do, your child did or did not do it, not you. If you were a helpful resource, yeah you! If not, oh well.

As adult members of society, we owe a duty of care to all children who find themselves in our orbit. We discharge that duty by making certain that they know that they are free to shape their own lives according to their own lights and that they are valued regardless of the choices they make.

So, I’m proud of you means that you are proud of something I’ve done, not of who I am per se. Deeper still, it means “I’m proud of myself for the role I played in enabling you to play your role, or perform your task, successfully.” When parents say, “I’m proud of you,” they’re taking a victory lap…for themselves!

This does not mean that you can’t say “proud”. You can certainly be proud of yourself for something you’ve accomplished. You set out to get an A in Chemistry and you did; it’s ok for you to feel proud of that accomplishment…for yourself. 

But if I get an A in Chemistry, please don’t detract from my accomplishment by saying that you are ‘proud of me’. What right do you have to be proud? You didn’t stay up all night studying…or helping me study. 

When I was 12, I moved from a neighborhood school to an elite school. I was lost. These kids could read…I mean really read: Dickens and the like, while I was still struggling with Dick and Jane. 

My grandparents swung into action. One or the other of them read every book I was assigned and laboriously talked me through each plot. When June came around at last, my grandparents were justly proud of my grades: ‘C minuses’ all across the board! (We weren’t looking for A’s!) They were entitled to be proud; they earned those grades as much or more than I did. But that is the exception that proves the rule. 

So what’s the alternative? You could have said, “I salute you” or “I congratulate you”, but that wouldn’t convey the same intensity as “I’m proud of you”, would it? Pride attests to a powerful, not to say incestuous, relationship between two actors: a puppeteer and her puppet. So, I’m proud of you is not only code for now I can love you; it’s also code for now I can love myself: I did it. I fulfilled my role in society. I raised a mini-me. I have projected myself into the future…both genetically and culturally.

So if can you never say “I’m proud of you” again, what can you say? How about, “Congratulations, you should be very proud of yourself!”  

If you can’t live with this, if you still feel you must say, “Proud”, make sure you understand what it is you’re saying when you say it. Who’s proud of whom and for what? Deconstruct! Then try to convey to your children that you love them regardless of their behavior or achievements…then try to believe it yourself! 

David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at dtc@gc3incorporated.com.

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