The short answer
You're doing work you're good at and it pays well. The problem isn't your career — it's that your family's idea of a 'real job' doesn't match yours. The question worth asking is: by whose measure is your work not real?
You're good at what you do and the money works. But there's real social pressure tied to age — research on age norms in Western Europe shows that societies attach strong expectations to what people 'should' be doing at certain life stages. Thirty-five carries a lot of those invisible rules. When your family says 'real job,' they're often reciting a script they absorbed, not a truth about your situation.
Marcus Aurelius cut through this kind of noise with one question: what is your profession? His answer wasn't a job title — it was to do good work. The measure that matters is whether you're doing your work well and with integrity. A job isn't 'real' because it fits a template. It's real because you show up and do it right.
This week, write down two things: what you're actually good at in this work, and what it's given you that matters. Keep it short — just a few lines each. When the 'real job' question comes up again, you won't need to convince anyone. You'll already know the answer.