Single File by Susan Deitz

It's a sure bet your parents feel their job isn't done if their daughter reaches 20-something and still isn't snuggled cozily into a marriage. (Parental protectiveness doesn't seem to reach the unwed son.) Dad especially is wary of the male, memories of his own hunting years still fresh and unsettling. So the single female is particularly challenged when it comes to showing the folks (and herself) she can stand on her own sturdy size 7s. Which makes this unique role reversal such a powerful and highly significant symbol, one with ramifications that can reverberate for years.

Taking your parents out to dinner is just one way you can celebrate your coming of age with the people who brought you from cradle to womanhood. They deserve to know your thoughts about being unmarried and to see for themselves how well you've prepared yourself for life on your own. Not that it will be this way forever — they do want grandchildren, however you arrange it — but they should realize you're not going to settle for Anyman simply to have a child seat in your car. That conversation should be layered with gratitude for the good parenting that encouraged the independent thinking they see in you today.

Before laying out specifics for a coming-of-age display, one word more about these people who created you. Until you resolve your parental conflicts and see them as mere mortals and equals, you won't be able to assume total ownership of your life. And until you are a whole person — believing that through and through — you'll feel ashamed and apologetic for not being married.

You'll be a loser in your own eyes, a half-member of your family. Which takes us back to the dinner table and the momentous ritual of hosting these beloved people, this woman and man who were your world for so many years. This dinner is basically a game of show and tell, acting out for them the strengths they inspired in you.

Prepare for this dinner by arranging with the maitre d' to present you the check while you're supposedly in the ladies' room during the dessert course so that Dad won't feel obligated to play the traditional role. Mom will smile approvingly at her daughter's discretion. Give your parents plenty of notice so the three of you can agree on a date. Arrange to have them driven to the restaurant, with the table already reserved, and have their favorite wine iced and ready to pour. Flowers on the table, of course. Imagine, all this planned and executed smoothly by their — gasp — daughter, without a man by her side!

This is only the beginning of the parental awakening you will make happen, the start of a new kind of respect for their girl child. I promise you that the happier you are in your singleness the calmer they'll be about you. (And no, being comfortable unmated is definitely not the road to a lifelong solo act. The truth is that the wider you cast your net in this delicious world — the more people and interests you put into it — the greater the odds of coming across an equally delicious partner. Dine on that for a while!

Write to Susan Deitz in care of this newspaper. She will answer all letters that come with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Or you may e-mail her at info@creators.com.

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