I'm not a real Pilot?

Once again, I'm not a real pilot.
Yesterday my daughter was confronted at school by
some (6th grade) classmates, they said her father was
not a real pilot.

To give you a little back history, my daughter is so
proud of her father that she's always telling anyone
she meets that her father is a pilot.
She doesn't tell them that I fly for a living because
she knows that we fly for the joy of traveling by air.
When I was younger I wanted to be a pilot but
because of all the negative people that surrounded
me, they convinced me that it was something I could
not achieve, so it wasn't till I was in my twenties that
I went out and got my certificate anyway and have
been flying for the last twenty plus years.
Long story short: I really enjoy flying, for the fun of
it and that is it.

My daughters classmates met someone outside of
school that knows me and when they got to talking
the kid mentioned that I was a pilot for an airline and
that person (an adult) corrected them and told them
that I was not a real pilot that I only fly TOY planes.

Funny thing is that I have a drivers license and have
never had the urge to drive a bus, I have been boating
all my life since I was 10 years old and have never
wanted to become a cruise-ship captain.
So why is it the general public thinks that to be a real
pilot you have to aspire to become a scheduled airline captain?
Flying around on someone else's schedule is not my
idea of fun especially to destinations I don't really care to go to.

I normally invite those that tell me I'm not a real pilot
to go up and fly around in the clouds with me and
see if they can land the plane.

Oh well!
Guess it leave more room in the plane for those that
should really be there to begin with.

David - MBP: make believe pilot