> I truly can't imagine a life where my father/mother would only hammer in the fact that I am just an average joe and should stick to climbing the corporate ladder. Such an uninspiring take, this one. Depressing.

That is depressing! But also not what the parent comment said -- you seem to have accidentally taken a much more severe meaning from that comment (than I did, at least).

The top-level comment is just talking about being pragmatic. It's hard to walk the line between having idealistic visions and knowing that most of them won't pan out, and probably harder still to teach walking that line to your kids. I think that's what the comment was talking about -- not advocating for falling entirely on the latter side of that line -- which, as you say, would be super depressing!