It's a sure bet your folks feel their job isn't over if their daughter (little ol' you) has reached 20-something and still isn't cozily snuggled into a marriage. (For some reason, parental protectiveness doesn't seem to extend to an unwed son.) Dad is especially wary of men, memories of his own hunting years still fresh and unsettling. So the unwed woman is particularly challenged when it comes to showing the folks (and herself) she can stand on her own sturdy size 7s. Which makes the following reversal of roles such a significant symbol, with positive ramifications that can reverberate for years.

Taking your parents out to dinner is a significant way you can celebrate your coming of age with the people who brought you from cradle to perfume. 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 need to realize you're not going to settle for Anyman simply to have a child seat in your car. (Incidentally, this conversation should be layered with loving thanks for the intelligent parenting that encouraged the undependence they're seeing today.)

Before laying out specifics for your coming-of-age display, a few words about these people who created you. Until you resolve your parental conflicts and see your parents as mere mortals — and equals — you won't be able to assume total ownership of your life. And until you feel you're a whole person, totally believing in your own wholeness, you'll feel ashamed and apologetic for not being married, a loser in your own eyes and a half-member of your family. Which brings us back to the dinner table and the momentous ritual of hosting these beloved people, this man and woman 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.

The day before the dinner, phone the maitre d' and arrange for the check to be given to you during the dessert course, not at the table (where Dad will feel obligated to pay) but on your trip to the ladies' room. Arrange for your folks to be driven to the restaurant — the table reserved, flowers on the table, their favorite wine chilled. All this planned and executed smoothly by — gasp — their daughter, and without a man by her side!

This is only the beginning of the parental awakening you make happen, the start of a new kind of respect for their girl. I promise that the happier you are in your singleness the calmer they'll be about you. And no, being comfortable unmarried is definitely not the road to a lifelong solo act. The truth is, 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 awhile.

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