Or less education. My grandfather had a third grade education and raised 9 children.
Thank you for bringing that, Melian.
The propaganda that increasingly saturated the US in the last century celebrated those who--and whose parents--"wisely" paid scores of thousands of dollars in tribute to university sheepskin signers (often for unemployable fields of study) while under-valuing blue-collar types whose family-oriented, often religiously-backed choices baked in hard-fought middle class survival. What such people do is very often of higher intrinsic value than a degree in women's studies or any of dozens of other college majors that have sprung up out of vacuousness in recent decades.
A large preponderance of US employers were propagandistically taught to heavily favor employing someone that simply flashes a signed sheepskin, irrespective of thoughtful consideration of its significance and value in the current circumstance.
As the Jack Ryan's series' character, Chavez, stunningly says in a recently released episode (not verbatim), "I trust that intel because I see a man betting his family's livelihood and their very lives on it."
The fading memories of those who personified the visceral middle-class strengths in such bygone eras are now reflected in old, no-longer-perused photographs.