George and Martha have two kids, Adam and Emily. Each has a significant other. Adam is twenty-five, living in Boston, and has been with his girlfriend, Veronica, for two years. Emily, twenty-four, is doing graduate work in Paris, and has been living with a thirty-year-old engineer, Hassan, who is from Algiers. Both relationships are serious, and George and Martha are concerned.
Adam calls and says he wants to come home for Christmas. And he’s bringing Veronica.
George and Martha have plenty of room, but, of course, the question is, “Do they let the kids sleep in the same room?” They know that Adam and Veronica have been sharing intimate space probably since one of their early dates. But, they aren’t married, and George and Martha do have a preference for having them sleep in separate bedrooms. It may be old-fashioned, but it is their house.
But Adam is adamant, insisting he’s an adult (questionable), and George and Martha cave. The bigger question is whether Veronica is good enough for their unbelievably good-looking, athletic, talented son. (Adam is moving up the ladder at a large insurance company and making six figures.) Adam has come through childhood unscathed—no drugs, no gangs, no untoward incidents with girls (though there was one occasion where the CHP caught him and his friends drinking a six-pack of questionably low-quality beer on school grounds).
Even though Adam and Veronica have not announced any wedding plans, they are a little too earnest about their future together, as far as George and Martha are concerned. Who knows? The kids might surprise them any day and elope to Corsica or Capri. Veronica is reasonably attractive and bright, but does come with some baggage. She has some health issues (problems with her digestive tract), a restraining order against a former boyfriend, is currently taking anti-depressants, and has an older brother who’s an alcoholic. (George will occasionally have a martini—Belvedere vodka; Martha tends toward sauvignon blanc.)
Emily and Hassan have a lovely apartment in the 16th Arrondissement of Paris. Emily, who speaks fluent French, has a job as a paralegal with an American law firm and loves to show off her French to visiting Americans; Hassan works for the engineering firm, Siemens. George and Martha have met Hassan a couple of times during trips to Europe. His parents owned a small hotel in Algiers but bolted to France during Algeria’s fight for independence in the late 1950s. George and Martha have not been particularly impressed with Emily’s choice of partners. Hassan likes to sit at outdoor cafés, sip espresso, and eye the long-legged pretties passing by. He appears phlegmatic. At least, he does not come across as ambitious. George thinks it’s unlikely Hassan will become Siemens’s CEO any time soon. Is this the guy who might steal their precious daughter? (Admittedly, George doubts there is anyone out there worthy of his daughter.) And is this the guy who might possibly help produce their grandchildren? Grandchildren! What a thought! Babysitting!
George and Martha decide it’s time to have a serious chat with their kids. They conference call their son.
“Adam, we want to talk to you about your plans with Veronica. You’ve been very coy so far. She is a sweetie, but we would like to know more. Will she be able to contribute to the family coffers in a meaningful way? What are her job prospects?”
“Look, Dad and Mom,” Adam responds with that telling bit of annoyance, and sarcasm, in his voice, “she’s a social worker. She helps people get a life. I thought maybe she would run a hedge fund, but she turned that down.”
“Well, do you think you might eventually want to marry her?” asks Martha.
“If I do, will you get me to the church on time?”
Emily is not as ambivalent as Adam. She says she is devoted to Hassan and pictures having a family with him. (George and Martha wonder if Photoshop might be able to help them edit this picture.) George realizes it would be futile to try to convince Emily that Hassan is not husband material. (As far as George is concerned, Hassan shouldn’t even be close-friend material.) Emily is strong-willed and determined. George remembers how she struggled but persisted in learning how to play a Chopin sonata when she was eleven. Her little recital went off beautifully. She makes her own decisions, and her own mistakes, although she admits to very few; he realizes he just needs to be there for her—to remind her that she’s making a huge mistake.
Another reason George and Martha don’t approve of Hassan is, if Emily were to marry him, she would remain in Europe. Europe, according to most guidebooks, is far away from the Bay Area, and the long flight requires considerable zitzfleish (German: ability to sit on your butt for a long period). They’ve always had a tight family unit. It’s bad enough with Adam across the country in Boston. Lately he seems to have developed a Boston accent: Hahvid Yad for Harvard Yard. If Emily settles down in Europe, the distance will have a devastating effect on the family dynamic. Certainly, George and Martha can make periodic trips to see the young couple, and Hassan and Emily would come to San Francisco once or twice a year, but it will be impossible to maintain real closeness. Cell phones and emails will hardly fill the space. And when babies came along, the problem would become more complex. Emily will likely insist that George and Martha come over and change diapers and push a stroller around.
In retrospect, parenthood all seemed so easy to George and Martha when their children were little. They would go to the swim meets and the soccer games, the kids would have school dances and attend bar mitzvahs and bring home good grades. (Sometimes they brought home other things from school, like infections and momentary rebellious attitudes and desires for the newest video games, but those challenges passed quickly.) Who knew when their kids grew up it would only get harder? George and Martha conclude that raising adult kids poses the most difficult parenting choices, mostly because the kids have the final say in their own lives; George and Martha feel this just isn’t fair.
Is there anything they can do to influence their kids? Probably not, but they decide to take the family on a fourteen-day Baltic cruise; it will be a distraction and at least give them a chance for further discussion. The cruise is well received, and George and Martha start by trying to get through to Emily. They figure it’s worth a shot, but the fact is, it isn’t. They get nowhere. Emily is in love—committed in a way unknown to Tiger Woods—and that’s all there is to it. She insists it is her life, and that she’s old enough to make her own decisions. George and Martha disagree. With Adam, they decide that the best approach is to lobby to get him and Veronica to move back; at least if the kids are going to marry, they’ll be close-by. They show Veronica pictures of the family at the Opera opening and on a trip to Napa and of sunny days in the winter. She seems to take at least some of the bait, but maybe she’s just being polite.
George and Martha understand that they should let their children make their own decisions, that the time of being able to fundamentally steer their kids’ lives has passed. They should have confidence that they gave Adam and Emily the tools needed to create healthy, productive lives and form fulfilling partnerships with the right people. Then they quickly realize that this is completely the wrong approach and that, perhaps, the real problem is that they’re just not trying hard enough. Or, maybe they’re just saying it wrong; if they rephrase their opinions, maybe their kids will agree and comply? They commit to redoubling their efforts, and they also cross 
their fingers, just to be safe.
Asher Rubin and his wife, Diane, have two kids, both in their twenties, but neither one is on the verge of doing anything precipitous. Asher would spew lava if they did.
