Being nerdy and getting good grades doesn't preclude being cool, especially not these days.

Eh, I think it's good to make sure kids don't pin their self esteem on anything overly tangible.

Grades are something that's inherently tied to cultural capital. If your parents are able to teach you the skills needed to succeed in academic subjects, you're going to do better. Pinning kids' self worth to grades often leads to kids with disadvantages like a disrupted home life becoming disillusioned with the education system and suffering as a result.

I got good grades; I do not think the grades themselves are anything to be especially proud about. What's more important is the effort that went into getting them, and that's something more worth focusing on.

A parent saying they think their kid is cool is a value judgement from their perspective. They have a child they enjoy spending time with and with whom they have a good relationship. That's something that I think anyone can get behind.

I don't think it's "cool" the way like...90s teen movies meant cool. I think it's more like, "are they a kind person who is enjoyable to be around?" You can have other achievements that look good on paper and be cool. You can be an awkward dork and still be cool in that sense. Unfortunately, some parents prize the resume over raising a decent human being, and some kids end up being assholes, which is not cool at all.

As an incredibly and habitually nerdy kid none of my nerd shit had been an obstacle to my parents thinking I'm rad. I taught and ran my Mom through a D&D campaign over Covid...

Also I don't think a parent who adopts the 'Is your kid cool" mentality is looking to make it another vector to disparage kids but to open adults minds to actually appreciating their kids as people not just little self congratulatory vicarious vindication of success. My parents are not fans of my Brother-in-Law's family because they refuse to look at their son and my sibling as success on any other metric than acedemic or career related successes. They look at their careers in slightly lower paid but fulfilling careers doing things they feel make the world a better place makes them "the dumbest smart people we know"... The fact their son is just fucking awesome in his own merits just never enters their heads (and makes my Mom mad enough to bite through steel.)

Having parents who are cool is a blessing.

Good point. Good personality is trait as is academic success.

I think the key message the dad was saying wasn't so much that his kids are cool but that he thinks they are awesome and that he likes to hang out with them because they have an amazing personality. "Cool" was just a term to make it sound less tacky