My grandparents were professionals. My paternal grandfather was a dental surgeon and later a dean of a highly regarded dental school. My maternal grandfather was an attorney. He graduated from Harvard law school and had license to practice law in pretty much every state. My father was a structural engineer who chose to work in other fields. My stepdad was a painting contractor who put on a paint uniform most days when he went to work. As for the women in my family, my maternal grandmother taught French (she was French). My paternal grandmother was a homemaker. My mom worked occasionally in a variety of jobs. After I was grown, she became a nurse.
I would say I come from both a blue and white collar background. As far as I can tell there isn't much difference between white and blue collar folks except those they self impose and sometimes their finances. I worked for a living all my adult life in a mixture of blue and white collar jobs. Money has never been hugely important to me.
My wife's family was all white collar. Her mom played bridge and told the maid what she wanted her to fix for dinner. Her father and his brothers were in minerals....namely oil, as were my wife's grandparents. Clearly, I married up.
No professionals in my family. As I said, my dad was in landscaping, mom worked for avon. My grandfather was boilermaker (welder) and my grandmother was a home maker. Dad died at 54, my mom retired about 15 years ago. Most of my family on my mom's side worked in the grocery business (my cousins still do). No wealth in my family. However my mom has no bills, house is payed off. They bought house in 1968 for $21,500 and it was just re-assessed at a little over $710,000, she lives off of her SS and pension (about $2400mo total) and has some stock. My aunt passed last year, my uncle (her husband) passed the year before leaving all assets to my sickly cousin (son) who has 15% working heart capacity. There are three immediate family members on my mom's side, me, my mom and my cousin. I'm the executor on my cousin estate worth a little over $1.2mil, this includes the house they have lived in for over 50 years. For obvious reasons, when they pass I inherit both estates.
My wifes family (close aunts and cousins) are crazy rich and seems anything they touch turns to gold. They own distributorships, develop properties and own department stores also involved in politics (head of the RNC), involved with the Bush transition team as well as lobbyists, attorneys, etc. Like you, I clearly married up and just the opposite of my side of the family.
