em28, That’s Charming for you 😛
But truth said, he is right. Emma has no place in FTL but Charming and the rest clearly miss the place, it’s going to be really tricky to balance it if at all possible! At least he’s sure of his priorities. Also, I don’t think the Charmings have much connection with Emma anyway. True, they are her friends but
a) they were missing from her life for 28 years, there is no parent-daughter bond at this stage. Yes, they would like one, but it’s not as easy as clicking your fingers.
b) it would be different if they were different age. But they aren’t and that creates yet another, entire new barrier.
Also, both Charming and David Nolan have actually spent relatively very little time with Emma compared to Snow – before the curse Emma lived with Snow and later on they spent together some time fighting/bonding in FTL. Yes, once they were back they were finally able to start catching up as a so called family, but I think it was quite clear that Charming’s priority was making up for the lost time to his wife rather than his daughter…