I agree. I grew up with my dad owning a road construction company that built roads, sidewalks, curbs, etc. with 90% of his non-office employees being of Italian or Portuguese 1st generation immigrants. Without anyone telling me different I grew up believing that the reason the people who did the actual labour of working outside on crews were immigrants was because of their education or lack of it. I was also lead to believe this by the media because in movies & TV shows anyone working in a trade were portrayed as uneducated & only working in a specific trade as a last resort before being unemployed & living on the street or were stuck working in it because that's the job their parent did & were forced into it.
It wasn't until my late teens when I started working for my dad, in the office, that I began to have a real appreciation for the people working on the crews. Getting to know many of them on a personal level & what a daily grind their jobs were I realized that there was no shame in what they were doing. That they were smart, creative, talented as hell & some of the hardest working people I've ever met. I also learned this about plumbers, electricians, carpenters, etc. While I may have had my eyes opened as a late teen(late 80s/early 90s), I still believe the stigma still exists in our society today that being a trades person is a not a real career choice but a job a person got "stuck in" because of a poor education or some other lack of privilage that kept a person from pursuing a "REAL CAREER." Which is total BULL SHIT.
You are so right in this article. We need to change the stigma about trades not being a legit, well paid, honest career choice alternative to "college degree" required careers. Thank you for writing this. You are amazing.
There’s a Larry David interview on Fresh Air where he says his mother’s dream for him was that he’d get a nice secure good job at the Post Office. That was as high as her aims for him were. If you don’t come from money it seems common that the people you grew up with don’t see you making it big. When I went to medical school and no one in my family had done that my mother kept telling me I should have just gone to nursing school.
I always love it when you find the logic loopholes in the real world. I went to an elite prep school. It's not that in that day a school would push trades over academics because we were young ladies. Our gender had an effect too. I'm just glad that my father insisted that I learn to type, a practical skill that has made my writing career possible. And I wonder now why I didn't learn other technical things, so that I might have had an easier time with retirement. I do think your point is well-taken, and might serve as a cautionary tale for young adults now.
This is SO TRUE. It actually works in both directions. I've known some people who grew up in those higher-echelon elite families, who really wanted to learn a trade but were strongly discouraged from taking that path. The stigma that Robert Q's comment describes is real and continues to this day. It is such a loss to our whole society when we can't value such work.
Thank you for addressing this. You are spot on re why the discussion of "learning a trade," especially in the political arena, sounds off. In trying to sound inclusive, people end up sounding condescending. It's right up there with "It takes many people to make this company what it is, from the CEO and Board of Trustees to the security guards and the cleaning crew"; it reinforces a hierarchy of inequality that has existed for centuries without acknowledging that it's inherently wrong and needs to be dismantled.
I don't know the solution either, but I can't help but think that if "higher" education weren't income based (i.e., if it were free), then we'd be on the road to valuing a variety of skills and training on a more equal basis.
This hits home Charlotte! Thanks for saying it out loud. Another example of using divisive language to create classes and diminish some working folks while lauding others. I was in college prep my first year of HS but family situation changed and I had to go to work instead. On top of the stress of supporting the family I also carried the "stigma" of being in the trade program in HS instead of college prep. It affected everything in my life those last two years in HS and I definitely needed the attitude adjustment! Thankfully, I learned to respect people for WHO they are, not because of the education or jobs they have.
I agree. I grew up with my dad owning a road construction company that built roads, sidewalks, curbs, etc. with 90% of his non-office employees being of Italian or Portuguese 1st generation immigrants. Without anyone telling me different I grew up believing that the reason the people who did the actual labour of working outside on crews were immigrants was because of their education or lack of it. I was also lead to believe this by the media because in movies & TV shows anyone working in a trade were portrayed as uneducated & only working in a specific trade as a last resort before being unemployed & living on the street or were stuck working in it because that's the job their parent did & were forced into it.
It wasn't until my late teens when I started working for my dad, in the office, that I began to have a real appreciation for the people working on the crews. Getting to know many of them on a personal level & what a daily grind their jobs were I realized that there was no shame in what they were doing. That they were smart, creative, talented as hell & some of the hardest working people I've ever met. I also learned this about plumbers, electricians, carpenters, etc. While I may have had my eyes opened as a late teen(late 80s/early 90s), I still believe the stigma still exists in our society today that being a trades person is a not a real career choice but a job a person got "stuck in" because of a poor education or some other lack of privilage that kept a person from pursuing a "REAL CAREER." Which is total BULL SHIT.
You are so right in this article. We need to change the stigma about trades not being a legit, well paid, honest career choice alternative to "college degree" required careers. Thank you for writing this. You are amazing.
There’s a Larry David interview on Fresh Air where he says his mother’s dream for him was that he’d get a nice secure good job at the Post Office. That was as high as her aims for him were. If you don’t come from money it seems common that the people you grew up with don’t see you making it big. When I went to medical school and no one in my family had done that my mother kept telling me I should have just gone to nursing school.
I always love it when you find the logic loopholes in the real world. I went to an elite prep school. It's not that in that day a school would push trades over academics because we were young ladies. Our gender had an effect too. I'm just glad that my father insisted that I learn to type, a practical skill that has made my writing career possible. And I wonder now why I didn't learn other technical things, so that I might have had an easier time with retirement. I do think your point is well-taken, and might serve as a cautionary tale for young adults now.
This is SO TRUE. It actually works in both directions. I've known some people who grew up in those higher-echelon elite families, who really wanted to learn a trade but were strongly discouraged from taking that path. The stigma that Robert Q's comment describes is real and continues to this day. It is such a loss to our whole society when we can't value such work.
Thank you for addressing this. You are spot on re why the discussion of "learning a trade," especially in the political arena, sounds off. In trying to sound inclusive, people end up sounding condescending. It's right up there with "It takes many people to make this company what it is, from the CEO and Board of Trustees to the security guards and the cleaning crew"; it reinforces a hierarchy of inequality that has existed for centuries without acknowledging that it's inherently wrong and needs to be dismantled.
I don't know the solution either, but I can't help but think that if "higher" education weren't income based (i.e., if it were free), then we'd be on the road to valuing a variety of skills and training on a more equal basis.
This hits home Charlotte! Thanks for saying it out loud. Another example of using divisive language to create classes and diminish some working folks while lauding others. I was in college prep my first year of HS but family situation changed and I had to go to work instead. On top of the stress of supporting the family I also carried the "stigma" of being in the trade program in HS instead of college prep. It affected everything in my life those last two years in HS and I definitely needed the attitude adjustment! Thankfully, I learned to respect people for WHO they are, not because of the education or jobs they have.
Love how you cut to the quick of it.