I just realized the following:

-I am the first in my extended family to have a tertiary education. My parents and grandparents were laborers.

-Despite having two degrees, I've never been able to use either of them

-I spent the next twenty years working various customer service jobs while never actually rising through the ranks.

-Today I'm over 40 and looking at living paycheck to paycheck until the day I die or retire. No-one in my generation with half a brain expects retirement to just, y'know, be there when it's our turn. All of us are waking up to the reality that despite paying into SS for our entire working lives, we will never get even a fraction of what we put in back.

Given these circumstances, how am I supposed to convince my son to continue his education when he's finished with high school? I feel like a liar already for trying to convince him that if he just works hard at something it'll eventually pay off, because I have seen firsthand that this just isn't true?