Originally Posted by suevv
So there's that going on. Some sort of perfectionism tied up with wanting to make mom and dad happy. Could that be a factor for you?

In our case, absolutely. That's pretty much the entire story, beginning to end.

This is one case in which identifying the nature of the problem does not lead to obvious solutions, because what are we supposed to do, make her like/respect us less?

We try to embody the "failure is always an option" motto, and demonstrate it by emphasizing and laughing at our own. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes she just doesn't want to hear it.