Appeals to the tyranny of paterfamilias are only a partial explanation for Levitt’s and Douthat’s hesitancy to support laws that grant women sexual autonomy. The subtler part, hidden in plain sight, is the consuming neurosis of SWPL parents who are pathologically invested in vicarious achievement through their children. This is exactly the readership that the New York Times targets, and one that any commercial publisher is happy to tap for its disposable income. Ginning up worry about the prospects of these readers’ children falling to a lower station in life is a reliable way to sell copy. It may be beside the point whether the Times and other highbrow publishers are earnestly providing what their readers want or cynically manipulating them for profit; in either case, they’re contributing to the neurotic smothering of young adults by their parents and doing very little to encourage parents to calm the hell down and keep some perspective.

I can say from personal experience and from what I’ve observed of my friends that this is not just a matter of parents fearing that their children will end up destitute, jailed, homeless, heartbroken, drugged out or otherwise ruined. Some of these parents are afraid that their kids will end up working as bus drivers. They don’t want to be embarrassed by children who have settled for work that they regard as menial, uninteresting and unduly humble. A few months ago, an abrasive retired British submariner became a cult hero after his daughter published a letter he had sent to his three children accusing the lot of them of being sexually dissolute fuckups who broke their mother’s heart. Even my dad, an extremely decent and well-mannered man who finds that sort of righteous scolding disreputable, has told me that he and my mom want to be able to tell their friends that I’m successful, by which he clearly means that I’m not driving for Greyhound, among other horrid fates that I would find agreeable enough. To that end, my parents spent the summer and fall berating me to keep working for my uncle the winegrower, the broke bullshit artist who has never paid me in the thousand-plus hours that I’ve worked for him, despite my recurrent, substantive, and angry complaints about his rotten behavior. This is the uncle who owes about half a million in worthless interest-free loans to relatives and friends, including $50k that my dad fronted on short notice to keep a friend from foreclosing on the farm after he decided to renege on an oral agreement to defer mortgage payments. My parents are worried that I’ll report him to the authorities, but I wouldn’t make such threats if he weren’t habitually drinking behind the wheel, making fraudulent statements to investors out of expediency, and using money invested in trust for me to prop up an unplumbed shantytown where he unlawfully charges rent on other bullshitters.

My parents like this arrangement because it allows them to keep tabs on me by proxy (over my screaming insistence that my uncle not act in loco parentis for me) and because they consider winegrowing a suitably genteel pursuit, allowing them to keep up the appearance that even though I’ve been living in a tent and have gone five years without payroll income, I haven’t fully dropped out of the middle class. I’m slowly putting an end to the happy horseshit by telling anyone who asks that my uncle has turned into an asshole who is ruining our professional relationship.

This situation is extreme, but I have the feeling that it isn’t as unusual in the upper-middle class as it seems. For one thing, I’m more open about family and professional problems than most of my friends are. Also, my parents are clearly much better-intentioned than some. Most people try to pretend that such things haven’t happened, but I’m just too sick of the bullshit to do that.

I know that my parents wouldn’t want their son going into the business of rubbing down naked flight attendants for cash money. That’s why I intend to keep my family out of the loop should I take that path. On the other hand, if I put that on the table, they might stop worrying about my interest in becoming a trucker.

Does this apply to his wife/exwife/girlfriends?

Just wondering…

Yes! This particularly pissed me off because as a sex worker and the father of an 11-year-old girl, I spend a lot of time thinking about these very issues and drawing the very opposite conclusions. When a person is mature and wise enough to make their own decisions they should get to do so with safety, support and protection under the law. Levitt’s “daughter test” is flimsy on so many levels. As this article points out, besides the blatant sexism it completely disregards a person’s right to make their own choices. When my daughter grows up I’m quite sure she doesn’t want the state taking over as her parent. I respect my daughter enough to be honest with her about what sex work is. I wouldn’t encourage her to do it herself, but if she has questions about it, just like with drugs, she knows she can talk to me and get honest answers. Every parent wants the best for their child, but the “best” is often giving them the information they need to make their own decisions, rather than trying to protect them with stigmatization and punishment. No matter what decision she made in her life I would rather it be a choice that offered safety and legal protection.

There are about a million legal things I’d hope my kid wouldn’t get involved in. If we outlawed all of them we’d live in a fascist state.