It does sound like you have a few qualifications there at least, not that I can blame you. I wonder - what do you feel does give you status within your community if not your children?

I think most of my local status, such as it is, comes from being generally amiable and having helped out at least half the people on the street with repair/lifting/moving tasks at some point.

Also I suppose living in a desirable neighborhood indicates status to outsiders maybe? I'm not sure what, if any, benefits that perception confers on me.

I may be a little broken in that I don't see the value of status signalling. If I'm nice to people, they're nice to me. That system has suited me increasingly well for decades. I dress for practical comfort, don't have high-ranking frequent flyer membership tier, and routinely get upgrades at the airport because I am sympathetic to the agents' pressures. People recommend me for jobs because I didn't make them feel shitty at work and make a point of boosting other people's contributions.

Between that, and trying to signal something with expensive sneakers or a sports car, I much prefer the approach that makes me feel happy inside, and builds people up rather than trying to make them jealous.

I'd like to think it's so easy to disregard all this, but I can say that as someone who also eschews the whole status thing (maybe I'm overly sensitive to it), people seem to disregard me mostly, which I suppose is fine. I think I'd rather be left alone to mostly just fart around and play, but I have some rather serious medical needs and so I have to try and stay employed through one company's layoffs or other. It seems I can never really escape the employment status games at a minimum.