Wednesday, October 12

Mixed Messages for Mammas

I couldn't help but laugh when reading about the Italian courts having come down hard on a mamma & nonno for over-protecting her bambino.  She got 1 year and 4 months for being "hyperprotective" and lavishing "hyperattentions" on her kid, to the point that he was not allowed to interact with other children.  
I can't imagine how extreme of a head case she was for it to have landed in the courts, but, talk about setting a dangerous precedent!  After all, it's these same courts that have consistently rebutted parents' attempts to stop paying for do-nothing adults living at-home in their 40s, while forcing others to pay child support until said (fully grown) child can live on his own.  If that includes being able to make a bed, iron shirts or cook a plate of pasta like mamma does, Udine - we have a problem.
I'm personally against the courts intervening in private lives this way.  But, clearly, we don't know the whole story.  I know of Americans who ply their offspring with every sort of medication, ushering them in and out of psychotherapists' offices, and rushing them to doctors for CAT Scans at the sign of a first sniffle.  These, too, are cases where the courts could and should intervene.  But rather than toss the do-gooders in jail, perhaps it'd be better to send them to the set of Super Nanny and remove the child from the household.  Psychiatric treatment, not prison time, is needed for the parents.
As for me, parenting courses (worldwide) for the most important job in the world and the only one in which we are left to our own devices would be a nice start.  In the meantime, to counter the hover-parenting, perhaps the courts should set up a hotline for desperate mammonis being smothered to death.  

2 comments:

Irreverent Italy said...

Ecco-this in from London:

http://news.yahoo.com/mother-force-fed-baby-death-155806091.html

Nice to know it's not just an Italian thing...

Anonymous said...

Purtroppo si va da un estremo all'altro: in Italia l'affetto e' troppo ed in America e' troppo poco........

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