At age 17 I made friends with a coworker in their 40s. I found out he was into D&D and he invited me to sit in on a game. Now I’m 30 and I been playing with this group of now 50-60 year old dudes every Sunday since. Age gap isn’t strange but if your getting weird vibes maybe have a chat with your son about your concerns, but he is an adult in college now. He will likely have many connections of all ages.
All of how our society operates is under threat of punishment when you have no access to food housing or healthcare by not making an income. If you we have threat of punishment for the working class we can also have threat of punishment for the owners. It’s the only way to fairly enforce the social contract under our current economic system. Obviously it’s bad to operate this way and what we are seeing is a direct result of a class of people not being held accountable for their end of the social contract.