We have been afraid to meet the parents unless our child indicated it was really serious. ShawSon’s first GF was not destined to turn into the real deal. He was besotted with her and, as far as we could tell, she didn’t really show the same in return. She was quite attractive and dressed well above the college norm and as far we could tell this relationship was about exploring sex. Not that she wasn’t bright or interesting. She was (she graduated summa with a major in English and a minor in CS). But, that was our assessment. Her father (her parents were divorced) requested that we meet. We asked ShawSon if there was something we ought to know. He said no. You two run in the same circles (both lots of fancy degrees and are part in and part out of the academic world) and he just wanted to meet. We did and it turned out that one of my friends from college was the dean at a well-known professional school who had recruited her father to teach there.
ShawSon’s last GF was an immigrant from China who came when she was young and so was bicultural. Her parents parents were culturally Chinese and the father didn’t speak much English. Lots of interesting cross-cultural things for ShawSon to navigate/explore when he visited. Protocol on gifts, for example. And very interesting views of Jews (we are Jewish). They were hoping to meet us. We had the feeling that that culturally this would be a significant step and we avoided it until ShawSon had made up his mind about the future of the relationship.
In contrast, we met ShawD’s current BF’s mother quite soon. We knew people in common and they live a few towns away – he had actually been in our house for an event hosted by ShawSon although ShawSon did not know him. We had her over early on, maybe for a birthday celebration for our daughter (or her son?). I walked over to her to say hello and make small talk and she said to me, “ShawD is the one. I sure hope my son doesn’t screw it up. He’s capable of it.”