Most parents want the best for their kids, but sometimes that manifests in the form of outsized expectations. Whether they see their kid becoming a doctor, attending an Ivy League, or going pro, they put immense pressure — intentional or otherwise — on their child.
However, not all parents do that, as one man discovered when he heard a father’s touching response to his child’s dreams of becoming a garbage truck driver.
A stranger was moved by a father’s response to his son, who wants to be a garbage truck driver when he grows up.
A man was picking up some food at a fast food restaurant when he encountered a sweet moment between a father and son. He shared what he heard on Reddit in the “Made Me Smile” forum.
“I overheard a father at Panera ask his kid what he wants to be when he grows up, and the kid said, ‘Maybe a garbage truck driver,’” the man recounted.
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Some parents might not react well to hearing this from their children. After all, being a garbage truck driver is not the most sought-after career in the society we live in. But that wasn’t this man’s reaction at all.
“Instead of immediately saying, ‘Why not a doctor or a lawyer?’ the guy said how important that job was to keep the city clean, and then he asked the kid what about the job interested him,” he shared.
The man continued, “The kid talked about how cool the mechanism on the truck was and how people always waved to the garbage men.”
He was impressed by this dad’s open-mindedness and willingness to accept his son’s unconventional dream.
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“It was really nice how the dad encouraged him instead of defaulting to the standard response you’d expect from people,” he concluded.
Fair or not, some jobs are considered higher status than others.
Farah Mohammed examined the belief that some jobs are more prestigious than others for JSTOR Daily.
“How a person’s job is perceived can have a huge impact on how they are viewed by others and even themselves,” Mohammed said. “Sociologist Everett Hughes referred to a person’s job title as a ‘combination of price-tag and calling card.’”
“We’ve come to think of prestige as an inherent quality,” Mohammed continued. “We sense that certain jobs are more worthwhile than others, without being able to pinpoint exactly why.”
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Prestige is something that we simply assign to jobs now, whether it’s really a good thing or not. Some are considered more elevated than others just because they are. This, in turn, allows us to rank the people around us.
A study conducted in 2012 by Tom W. Smith and Jaesok Son sought to rank different occupations by the social prestige they held. In the study, participants were given a list of occupations and asked to rank them on a scale of one to nine, or from least to most prestigious.
Garbage collectors had a mean ranking of 3.8 on this scale. While plenty of jobs scored lower than that, it’s not particularly high.
Garbage collector may be considered a less prestigious job, but it is an essential one.
During the pandemic, we all got used to the concept of “essential workers.” For a while, these were the only people allowed to actually go to their jobs when everyone was meant to be living in isolation.
Many jobs with higher prestige and higher salaries did not make the list of essential workers, but garbage collectors did.
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According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics“janitors and cleaners” were an essential part of the public health and safety industry. Unfortunately, their salaries did not reflect this, as their “median annual wage” was only $27,430.
While some jobs may be more respected and sought after than others, that doesn’t change the fact that all jobs are necessary for society to function properly. Being a garbage truck driver is a perfectly valid dream, and it’s good that this father encouraged his son instead of tearing him down.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news and human interest topics.
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