Hillbilly Elegy

been for Mommy, we’d have been
dead.”^15
Alongside these conflicting norms
about the value of blue-collar work
existed a massive ignorance about how
to achieve white-collar work. We didn’t
know that all across the country—and
even in our hometown—other kids had
already started a competition to get
ahead in life. During first grade, we
played a game every morning: The
teacher would announce the number of
the day, and we’d go person by person
and announce a math equation that
produced the number. So if the number
of the day was four, you could announce
“two plus two” and claim a prize,