My dad is an inventor.
It’s the coolest thing for a dad to be.
You say you have a problem and your dad invents a contraption to fix your problem. My dad has created shoes that don’t require bending over to lace, he’s created retractable ski poles and bike saddles. At work, my dad has participated in a countless number of patents.
I think my dad is pretty great. And he’s also my constant reminder that being an inventor with dozens of patents that bear your name doesn’t necessarily come with a diploma. My dad came from a family where finishing high school was ambitious and much less useful and valued than having trade skills early. His older brother stopped before the end of high school, and he never even considered doing better than his brother. When he learned that he hadn’t made it into general high school because of his grade in Spanish, he signed up for trade school where he’d become a tractor mechanic − a pretty good job in 1980s « diagonal of the void » France. Then, he learned that there was a loophole where he could exchange his Spanish and English grades and by doing that, through some coefficient magic, he actually could go to general high school. But he didn’t see the point, and neither did his parents, so off he went.
I think one of the most valuable things I learned, as I became the youngest high school graduate of my department, then got a bachelor’s degree, then went to a prestigious business school for my masters’, then did another bachelor’s degree because why not, is that diplomas do not correlate with intelligence or worth.
And every time I try to assemble IKEA furniture, and break at least one nail in the process and end up with a very gangly contraption (hah! see what I did there?), I find comfort in the fact that I am the living proof of this fact.