The undervaluing of the blue collar worker
Iwas raised by a truck driver. Growing up, all my father ever told me was how I was going to college no matter what. My dad would come home nightly after busting his back all day and told me how much smarter I was then him and I had to go be something bigger than his high school dropout self.
In the winter, he would come home with chapped, cracked and bleeding hands from the cold and in the summer, his shirt would be drenched in sweat
because his AC went out but he kept going because he had mouths to feed.
In a world filled with millennials pushed to go for degrees, people like my father are a dying breed.
While college is an amazing thing, I think as a society, we have undervalued the importance of the men and women who are the backbone of all that our world has been able to accomplish.
College degrees are amazing assets. It can land you on the path that you want to take in life. But college isn’t for everyone.
I have a brother who is smarter than I, and as an older sibling, I don't care to admit that. That being said, college isn’t for him. He goes crazy sitting at a desk being made to be still and focus as one person speaks.
He is happy with his hands covered in motor grease or building something with a welding torch.
Although we work in totally different fields, neither my brother’s or my jobs are of any less value than the other.
We both provide necessary services for society, so why is it that people tend to think less of my brother’s occupation then my own?
As a society, we need to stop think of manual labor as something that a person can “fall back on” if they don’t make it through college. They work hard for every dime they make. My brother works circles around me physically.
I also feel that there is this misconception that people who work with their hands are stupid.
There is a famous quote by Albert Einstein, “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
My brother and father understand things that I can’t fathom.
I’ve seen my brother take apart and put an engine together. I couldn’t even tell you how to start doing that. On the flip side of things, my brother will leave the writing and sitting through interviews and meetings to me.
Because of this push for every child to go to college, there is also an over-saturation of people with degrees.
How many people do you know that have a degree in something, and aren’t working in the field they graduated in? How many people do you know that make less than what they thought their degree was worth?
People with a technical degree in welding are more likely to get hired doing what their certificate is in and making $20 an hour as starting pay.
Instead of discouraging your child from becoming a welder, mechanic, electrician or plumber because it's “too hard on their body," be encouraged that your child has a goal and a dream for what they want to do with their future.
I would not have been able to go forward and conquer like I have if it wasn’t for my daddy working despite the pain and wear that he has put his body through.
I wouldn’t be safe and free to pursue my dreams if it wasn’t for soldiers like my brother.
These men and women are the back bone of our nation. They make sure our lives run smoothly and we take that for granted every day.