Also agree with not normalizing this, but there are more of us than them. I grew up in a pretty rural part of the US, and we’d talk far more shit on the kids who showed up in BMWs their families bought them than the kids who showed up in secondhand shoes. My dad might have been underemployed (postal carrier, etc for years), but he’s forgotten more about machining and mechanics than most professors know, and now he spends his time fixing neighbors machines in exchange for $ for parts, and bartered goods for labor.

Defs a better (but not perfect) ideal than someone’s father who’s day trader 🤮

Agreed! One professor literally switched from praising me (oh your dad must have been an educated man!) to pity, after I told him that my father repairs industrial machinery as a profession.