Private Pilot Compensation
The short answer is that in practice the FAA doesn’t care about “compensation” between family and bona fide friends.
The long answer is that the FAA’s mission is to protect the general public from pilots. (If they also happen to protect pilots, that is a side effect at most.) Your parents and bona fide friends are not the “general public”.
As a practical matter, the FAA could never prove beyond a reasonable doubt in court that any particular dollar that your parents or bona fide friends gave you was for flying vs a gift or for something unrelated, especially when it is likely they would be uncooperative with any investigation or charges against you. If they give you money, and you happen to use some of it to take them flying to a place of your choice, so be it. It’s just not worth the FAA’s time to look too closely at that, so they consciously turn a blind eye.
Where you will get into trouble is flying strangers or acquaintances to a place of their choice. The exact path the money takes is irrelevant; if you accept compensation from the “general public”, then you are operating an illegal charter, and the FAA will hit you like a ton of bricks for that.