The way I see it (admittedly, as a 24 year old working in tech for the past 7 years), manual labour is okay, but definitely not something I’d do as a means to get by. My dad worked in construction for most of his life (mainly motivated due to debts incurred while he was locked up and taken up by my “mother”) and it has had an immense toll on his body, mostly back injuries and other non-reversable issues it has caused. But there were still many occasions where I went along with him to Finland, Sweden, and Norway as a “helper”, which have all taught me the value of hard work and dedication, pushing through whatever hardships you might have, and have generally been great for father-son bonding. Now that he however has exited that fieid (to work as a trucker which he loves because it’s basically “getting paid to travel long distances” which he loves), although I value the work done by tradies and have an immense respect for them (or at least the ones working as hard as my dad did), I still don’t see myself ever wanting to do that as a “job”. Since my dad has those skills, he still puts then to good use for personal needs (remodelling the house, fixing the roof, building a gazebo in his yard, etc), I still love going there to help him with all that, but much more as a father-son activity than as work.