I just came back from Italy.
(Few sentences are as tragic as this, I think you’ll agree. Nobody should ever leave Italy.)
I was in Abruzzo – a quiet, rural part of the country filled with mountains and lined with silken white beaches, where Time appears to stand still, geckos scrabble across sun-drenched walls, and the smiles are as wide as the pizzas.
And a place, where, like much of Italy, unsurprisingly, parenting is done….Italiano style.
We hear a lot about Italian families, and think of them as huge, loud, animated, colourful, loving, a little crazy, food-filled and wine-soaked. A kind of heavenly, warm, welcoming, life-affirming, soul-lifting hug-fest of dolce vita and Mamma’s fresh-cooked pasta.
And much of this is true.
But spend some time in Italy watching Italian families in their everyday activities, and you pretty quickly see that the reality of Italian family life has two faces; this big, loud, protective, warm bosom of family support and love that we hear and talk so much about.
But also…respect. Manners. Behaviour. Rules. And a clear, and clearly obeyed, family hierarchy.
I was in Italy during the school term time there, and every day at about three o’clock the streets, the piazza and the beach slowly became filled with the sound of laughter, giggling and high-pitched shouts. The gelaterias filled up. The playgrounds became populated by groups of children gabbling and babbling away in fast tongues.
Notably, there were few adults with them. They were there, yes, but they were separated from the groups of children. Watching, but not hovering. There, but not in their faces.
The children themselves played in a way that I haven’t seen for a long time in the UK. They had very simple toys, if any. A ball. Some marbles. A paper plane or a some tiny plastic Kinder Surprise. They huddled around and passed these things to each other, grabbing and squabbling occasionally as kids do, but talking to each other, sharing, not competing or being jealous or what the other had. Playing together.
Arguments were sorted out with much junior hand-waving and exclamation. And then things moved on.
The adults didn’t intervene or fuss.
And if Mamma had cause to call them over or ask them to do something…BOOM. They did it. No argument.
‘Si, Mamma!’
This respect and obedience of adults is astonishing to most English parents, many of whose kids generally ignore them, answer back, swear in front of them and openly slag them off in front of their peers.
Most of us have less authority over our kids than a dead goldfish.
I witnessed this Italian parenting recently at home, when I met a friend of mine who runs a pub. Her 18-year-old son was working there – keeping it in the family business.
On a full, heaving Friday night with a queue 4 feet deep at the bar, she called him over to come and say hello to me.
Over six feet tall and very strong, this young boy, on the cusp of becoming a man, looked me straight in the eye, shook my hand, and said a confident, respectful ‘hello’. We chatted for a few minutes about school, football and University, and while he looked a little unsure to be talking to me, who he barely knows at all, just as any young boy might be when talking to a stranger, he held his own and was incredibly polite and engaging.
Then his mum said. ‘Right, that’s enough. Back to work young man!’ He kissed her on the cheek and hugged her, and went back to work.
I really, truly struggle to see that kind of interaction happening between any of the British parents I know, and their children.
I was hugely impressed.
But that’s the thing with the Italian way of parenting. And, indeed, much of the parenting in many others countries out of the UK and the US.
There is an old-fashioned, beautiful sense of love combined with discipline, that we seem to have almost totally lost here.
To put it simply, in Italy children are CHILDREN.
They are adored. Worshiped. Loved and nurtured above all else.
They are free to play, adventure, stay up late, eat gelato and spend time away from the watchful, interfering, fussing eye of their parents.
But there are rules. There are levels of respect, and there are boundaries. This is KEY, in childhood, and far from being unkind, this is actually good for children. It gives them a structure, and some security. It teaches them about consequences, responsibility, honesty and trust.
I wrote a whole book about all this, six years ago. And I stand by every word.
Italian children are not on a par with adults, treated like adults, or expected to behave like adults, as far too many children are, in our culture.
They are not our best mates, our confidantes or our source of support. They are not controlled, hovered over, pressured and anxious.
They are given what so many children in our culture miss out on – a real CHILDHOOD. And time to be a CHILD.
Loved. But also kept within certain limits.
They are bambini. Children.
They are free, but protected.
And they are very lucky in this.