Working in Italy - What NOT to do

People who accuse me of picking on Italy usually think I really dig for the dirt.  I usually respond with the fact that most of my information comes from Italian newspapers, conversations with taxi drivers, men-in-the-coffee-bars, that sort of thing.  But I nearly spat out my cappuccino today reading about a "new phenomenon" that has crossed the radar screens of HR personnel across the Boot.  That's because, not only have I experienced this since 1992, the situation will be one excerpt on my forthcoming book about doing business in Italy.  The article dealt with the delicate situation on how to handle mamma or papà accompanying their precious bambino on the job interview.

From an excellent blog post from Flown & Grown
in which I discover that in this brave new world of helicopter parents
that this is not necessarily a wholly Italian phenomenon

I used to warn my staff when hiring in Italy, when I ran a small subsidiary for an American multinational, was...to kindly decline the interview for anyone who's mother called for the appointment. I once got a mamma on the phone who took umbrage at my suggestion that...If La Mamma had to make their appointment, I didn't want that person as my employee. She did what any mother would do - she stuck up for her brilliant salesman son.  She upbraided me, telling me that her son "could not be expected to make the calls himself from his current employment, now could he?" (In his/her defense, it was the age before ubiquitous mobile phones).  I offered that he had a lunch break, didn't he?  
Mammas & Papàs would often be waiting in my waiting room, or in the hallway just outside the door.  I would have to commend the moral support vibe and sheer commitment, but it often left me bewildered more than bewitched by the candidate's drive. The article went one further, citing that some people in the hospitality industry, actually had the parent walk into the interview altogether.
Mamma out of the room, these same people then said that the next faux pas was to ask, almost immediately, how much the job paid.  Again, in my tiny little office world, this happened time and again.  You should see the look on their faces when I would respond, "Absolutely nothing.  Or at least, that's what I'll be paying you if you don't first tell me why I should hire you in the first place, and what you're going to do for me."
If cellphones had been handy at the time, I could just see these kids texting away as if in the university exams room, desperate to emote the correct reply.  Today, they probably ask for a 'Life Line' and make the call to the parent out in the car, anyway.
In the U.S., according to Flown & Grown, now we have Take your parent to work day! You can read about one mom's misgivings on the topic which I share wholeheartedly.  Of course, it's easy for me to come down so hard - I don't have kids.  But still...With Italians living longer than ever, and parents around til kids are in their 70s, I can't help but think why that youth unemployment is over 50%.


Check out my latest post on Irreverent Italy!
Life in a tourist destination...
http://irreverentitaly.blogspot.it/2014/01/italian-phonetic-language-after-all.html

In Italy, a child...by any other name...

Will still poop its pants. 
That Italy is a male-chauvinist society is fairly common knowledge. I often bring into the blog the latest in keeping women well-heeled & childless in their monster SUVs [after all, going barefoot even in summer is barbaric, and pregnant? No one can afford kids anymore].  But in the name game, as one commentator told the press, Italy isn't in the 20th century, they're in the 1800s.  Well, as of today, all that changed.  Thanks to a dynamic couple from Milan, who refused to take "No" for an answer when told that their child could not bear the mother's last name. [For purposes of this post, I'll ignore the obvious - that even women's last names eventually lead back to a patriarch somewhere].
An Italian friend who had four kids 40 years ago with the woman who would become his life partner, was told that because they were unmarried, he would have to list on the birth certificate, 'Padre Sconosciuto' - Father Unknown.  Fast forward to our Milanese couple in 2012, and they were told that their offspring, if the were to sport the mom's name, would have to be listed the same way.  Outraged, and with the rest of the world on their side, they took their case to the European Union - and won.
Not so long ago, Italians decided that women could, indeed, change their own names.  But the laws drew the line on the kids.  I always liked the fact that women kept their own last names in Italy - but I've seen plenty of times, when the father is not part of their lives, how strange it is for the kids and their mom to have different identities altogether.  Gladly, that's not the norm.
So, Italy, one hyphen at a time, is allowing for names to be joined, for women to take their partner's last names, for children to take hers.  The last bastion is, in naming them strangely like Wednesday Addams, or Apple and such.  In one instant, and I believe it was a person who wanted to call their kid Adolf Hitler, or something like that, the judges intervened and refused to allow the name to go through. 
Moreover, middle names still cause problems.  I was actually not admitted to hospital once because I had filled out all the forms in the spaces provided: LAST NAME / FIRST NAME. Not thinking of my (largely unused) middle name.  When they took one look at my i.d. card, they said I'd have to start all over from scratch, months away, in order to get admitted properly.  I took the papers out of their hands and swiftly added my middle name to them...offering politely, that I had no idea what they were on about.
What would the Italians have done if they had gone the route of the Spaniards, and offered up a half dozen last names for every child birth?  Most of whom hail from the matriarchal side of the family?  I shudder to think of the bureaucracy that would ensue.

A few more fun posts on the Name Games of Italy:
Italian Name Origins
How (not) to correct your dual last names 
Fun Italian names

Kept Under Wraps

We’ve been experiencing a cool spring, with temperatures this week barely creeping over the ‘60s. But to judge by the kids going to and from the school yards, well, you’d think that the ice age was upon us. Those kids are so wrapped up, they look like mini-replicas of the Michelin Man.
Here in Rome, you can always spot the foreigners a mile away. In November and March,  the Germans run around in their shorts and sandals (with socks). The Americans, not much better (they even wear shorts on the plane, while I'm seated, fretfully wrapped up in three blankets under my winter coat, scarf and hat). My sister’s kids, on a chilly April day were running around Cortona as if they were on the beach in August. Needless to say, I had on a hat, coat and scarf.
They actually stopped traffic.
People thought they must be misguided street urchins, and I spent the day fearful someone would call the authorities to pick them up off the streets & rush them into foster care. Upon seeing I somehow spoke the natives' tongue, however, it opened up a whole slew of comments -- mostly on how cold the kids must be (they weren't). One mother (and I am not making this up), whose child was actually wearing a hooded parka, leggings and mittens, ushered her kid away from the playground as fast as his thunder thighs could take him, as if the very idea of liberty might be contagious. The little boy took one last desperate look at these alien children, footloose and fancy free, as he waddled away in his winter wraps, probably into a heated vehicle.
But, what I can’t figure out is that while le mamme are deathly afraid of their kids ‘catching cold’, they’re even more paranoid about kids' sweating – and ultimately caving in from an attack of consumption. In what is seriously a case of mass denial, the mammas look on fondly at their little rosy-faced bundles of joy (bundle being the operative word here). Except it's not the cool air which gives them their cherub-like appearance, but the fact that they are actually roasting underneath their handknit sweaters & down coats. Alas, they're protected by the ubiquitous undershirts, right out of a 1940s neorealism flick. Probably coated with the Italian version of Vick's Vapor Rub besides.
And so it seems, even with the arrival of new generations of mammas & bambini, it is still the calendar which dictates the dress code. And that explains why you’ll only find crazy foreigners seated in the outdoor cafès on a sunny December day.

Guess who lives in Italy?

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.  

Boxer Day or Boxing Day?

This holiday season, there is a battle raging on the internet, and it has nothing to do with Julian Assange against all the governments on earth.  Instead, it's a dog fight with so many pawns & paws, you don't know quite on whom to put your money.
In fact, if you look at annual 'Gift Giving Guides', news pages, City websites, you'll find many people promoting the idea that at Christmastime, you should 'Give a pet a good home'.  Astute journalists & editors will then specify, that you shouldn't actually buy those pets (ground out of puppy farms), but adopt them from shelters.  Take a look at this video: who doesn't want to see a child's face light up like these:



Unfortunately for the dogs, and according to Italian stats, a good 40% of them will end up right near the train set and the dollies -- by the bin at the side of the road as soon as the novelty wears off. Some sites go so far to say, 'Go ahead - give a pup -- but not as a surprise'. People should choose their own pets wisely, be sure of the commitment and the responsibilities involved and bond with them - first. Jack Russels-in-the-box as depicted above, is probably not a very wise idea.

Dig further, and a whole different viewpoint is expressed by the bloggers and animal rights activists around the worldwide web. Simply put, Don't give pets as toys - ever.  That was the campaign launched in Rome, while in southern Benevento, the City Officer for Animal Rights came out urging everyone to please adopt a pet - and reduce the number euthanized in shelters.  Torino opted for the more democratic, 'Give wisely' - along with, adopt -- don't buy.
You can also find added, Don't give animal-tested products out as well.  And to that, I'd like to toss in, And don't give stuffed animals made in China. Lord knows what cancerogenic fibers are lurking in their fur. And you thought fleas were a problem.

What do you think, To Give or Not to Give a cute little Boxer on Boxing Day*?

*This excellent definition of Boxing Day (or in Italy, observed as Santo Stefano), a day the Brits like to remind everyone of their caste system is provided by http://www.kidsturncentral.com/holidays/boxingday.htm

The holiday Boxing Day may get it's name from the 19th century English custom of giving Christmas boxes containing food or money to family servants and suppliers, the day after Christmas. Another possibility is Boxing Day may have come from the opening of church poor boxes that day.

The most basic understanding is that gifts, or boxes, were given to those who were less fortunate, on the day after Christmas, while gifts to those with equal standing were given on Christmas day.

It is also known as, the Feast of St. Stephen, or St. Stephen's Day - the first Christian martyr.

It is most often celebrated in Australia, Britain, New Zealand and Canada.

Although it is a statutory holiday in these countries, it is not celebrated as such. Most countries host Boxing Day sales on that day which have little or nothing to do with the holiday at all.

FIAT-in the driver's seat

As a followup entry to 'Baby you can drive my car' below, I'd like to heap some praise on our fledgling Detroit automobile company...But first, the bad news:

FIAT (and incredibly, NOT Chicco, the baby seat/baby toy producer - go figure) conducted a study outside schools & nursery schools in which they observed parents & their darling offspring.  They confirmed what all the rest of us foreigners already know: 

Despite supposedly holding their single child more dear than even God himself (sometimes the two indistinguishable from one another), Italians are pretty careless with their heavenly little cherubs. 

Okay-I'm paraphrasing of course.  That's NOT what they studied.  They found that: over 60% of Italian children are put in cars with no safety belts or safety seats whatsoever.  Now, they know they're Italian because, let's face it, the immigrants usually don't have cars, or, their parents are too busy trying to make a living, than to cart children around town. Ride the bus and you'll know this is true.
What's even more remarkable, is parents' complete ignorance of the facts:

- Car accidents are the number 1 cause of death for children aged 5 to 12 (although I'm sure that's pretty universal)
- Each year, 10000 kids wind up in car accidents (that's 30 bambini per day)

And why they still don't cough up how many actually die, they say that safety seats would guarantee a 70% chance of surviving an accident (and no, that does not mean children strapped in the front seat with tiny heads in front of an airbag pronto to release at 160 km/hr).

What they need is a bit more of that American knack for creating a nation of people unable to do anything on their own:  Sue everyone you can when you're own stupidity caused the accident in the first place - heck- it's like winning the lottery - only easier!

As a result, a mamma told me that in the U.S., the hospital walks you & your baby out to the car.  They help you put the baby in the car seat and make sure it's strapped in properly.  No seat. No baby.

In Italy, they send you home with a mild warning: "Whatever you do, make sure the baby travels flat on its back for the first few months."  Now - you can imagine what that kind of propaganda does for the car seat people...

Why Chicco isn't all over this is still beyond me, but in the meantime, I only hope that FIAT quits wasting money on 'studies' and allots their car seat behavioral budget to me instead.

And those careless Americans?  Turns out they have their own little epidemic going...forgetting kids in cars altogether - It would seem Americans are wound so tight with kids strapped in so well, that the kiddies don't even peep while daddy runs to the office -- for 9 hours.
Thus was born the baby seat monitor (pictured above) and ZeroSeconds.

I guess that's one problem that Italians succeed in avoiding - hard to forget an 8 lb. baby when it's sitting right on your lap...

Baby, You can drive my car

A friend recently brought her newborn baby over from the U.S.  I took one look at the stroller – and I knew she had bought it there – it’s the SUV of baby strollers.  Suped up, ready for action – with the seat doubling as a car seat you just pull right out and strap into your car.  All in very elegant fabric, like the inside of a Cadillac.  Except it had the Italian label – Chicco – on it.

Of course. No wonder it was elegant, too.  She said, aside from the fact that her (very) Italian husband would never have ‘bought American’, it turns out that that model – is the Armani of baby strollers (I shoulda figured). Until very very recently, the strollers here looked like they came straight out of a 1940s reel of Mary Poppins.  Whenever my sister came to visit with her 4 kids, they would get stopped constantly – with all the mammas just oohing and ahhhhhing…

Not over the rather large brood (a family of 6 in Italy is hard to come across), or the cutie-pies in the bunch…No, the mammas all wanted to talk strollers.  So, one would think that this stroller could have been purchased here, in its mother country, so to speak.

Turns out, it was so over-the-top, they don’t even sell it in Italy. 

America, land of hyper-convenience had the ‘built-in-baby car seat’ on their deluxe model.  Why they don’t carry it in Italy, when it seems just as good of a market is beyond me. 

The Chicco 'Cortina' Baby Stroller
- not available in Cortina -

But on second thought, that might just be for two reasons: 

       1.    Mammas don’t leave their house with their piccolo  bambino until they’re too big to fit in a car seat or

       2.    Italians prefer the ‘Mamma-wraps-her-arms-around-the-baby-just-like-a-seatbelt-while-sitting-in-the-front-seat-with-bambina mia’ version of car seats.  

      It would seem that Italians still don’t divorce much,  because they still need someone to drive the car.

Black Gold, Turin Tea

It must be all those images of petroleum mucking up things all over America's south that brought the attention - front & center - to the EU commission.  Would they start sms campaigns to help Americans in their time of need?  Stick tougher regulations on the European petrol companies?  No - all that gooey brown chocolate gook made them think of one thing and one thing only -- how to regulate Nutella through taxes and warning labels -- seeing that the one for cigarettes has had such a resounding success over the years.

Their central aim is good - trying to put an end to childhood obesity - but they are far off the mark. It seems that, after Nutella was lauded for having one of the best brands on earth (like say, the French soccer team), it was too much to handle -- and so the EU would have to step in to put an end to it.  After all, as fellow blogger over at the Smiling Eggplant stated so precisely, it's not Nutella that brings on the pounds, it's the person's behavior.  Think Augustus Gloop and Charlie - I'm quite certain that even once Charlie moved into that Chocolate Factory, he still would have kept the pounds off.

And while it's true that those trim Italians are starting to look a lot more - well, American - and I don't mean the jeans & Nikes - I don't believe it's the sugar and fat of their favorite breakfast treat that's the culprit.  My nephews eat it by the barrel, but are all such sports fanatics that it wouldn't cause even a ripple in their rib cages.  And, one can make a fairly strong case that - Nutella has been around for a very long time, and Italians - up til now - haven't had much of a weight problem to speak of, unless of course, you count la mamma of days long gone by.

Over the years, I've seen Italian kids go from 'no eating between meals' to the ones who, like their American counterparts, will go into a grocery store to pick up a six pack of Coke and a pack of Mars Bars.  Kids who had no idea what snack foods were are now treated to Pringles mini-packs on every street corner.  Add to this the McDonald's 'get 'em while they're young', the lack of school sports and mammas who call out on the playground, "Giovanni, don't sweat!" whenever they start to do something as foolish as run. All said, we're in for a case of double diabetes before you can even say, 'Coca Cola calda con la canuccia*.  The fat camps won't be far behind.

But don't touch the one industry that does seriously well in Italy. If Italians didn't eat Nutella for breakfast, they would have no brain food at all.  They'd be back to their sandpaper Barilla biscotti dipped in milk.  And believe me, that certainly can't be a good thing.
Nutella gives us energy, Nutella makes the world go round, Nutella, in a word, is our petroleum.

*warm Coca-cola with a straw - an hilarious thing to hear in proper Tuscan dialect

Book Review

Taking care of my little nephews last week, I began to gain some perspective upon – if not outright compassion for those mammas who I so disdain for carrying their kids’ book bags [how does that American Indian saying go about walking a mile in my moccasins?]. Granted, in a country like Switzerland where they have taken the Montessori method of ‘learn at your own pace’ schooling to new highs (or lows, depending on your point of view), books are not a big part of what gets carted around in kids’ school bags. All I know is that, if you want to get them home in time for you to make dinner, you better grab the bags.

In Italy, on the other hand, tiny tots lug huge volumes to and fro, reminiscent of books originating in hilltop monasteries (obviously, a tradition handed down from the times when one was schooled only by the church). Like their forerunners, these books are so precious, kids are not allowed to mark them up (so much for interactive learning), and must share them with their deskmate before handing them down to the next class. In a country famous for copying, making actual copies of only the pages in question is totally out of the question -- one of the few rules that actually gets enforced here.

Each school year is marked by the typical Back to School Sales and the Back to School Sit-ins by moms and tykes alike, protesting the book bag weight scheme. Nonetheless, I now find little kids with backpacks on rollers in order to get their studies to school while saving them from a lifetime of Chiropractic care. Considering how much kids dilly-dally on the way to and from school, you begin to wonder if we couldn’t get the kids themselves on those rollers.
Perhaps that’s why those healies shoes were invented. By a parent seriously tired of reiterating ‘C’mon, Let's Go!’ ‘til he was blue in the face.

Holidays in Italy--Spreading Good Cheer or Good Germs?

Each year, members from the American International Club of Rome (AICR) gather to sing Christmas carols for all well, make that some of, the bambini at the Rome Children’s Hospital right by the Vatican; appropriately named, Bambin Jesù (Baby Jesus). The group delivers gifts to the kiddies and even a few of the tots dance along with the tunes.
This most traditional of events, however, did not come without its own security apparatus fit for the coordination team of a sitting U.S. President. Basically, the revelers were not allowed into the corridors of the hospital; we could only gather in one of the main areas, where the kids who were well enough to walk could come and listen (chaperoned, I'm sure). Although it makes some sense, I mean, we could bring the gift of incubating flu to fragile patients, or take a kid under our coats as a sort of free gift...I still feel that the spirit of wandering mistrals was lost on the general hospital populace.
So, when last I joined the merriment, out in the sun-beaten area replete with a glorious Christmas tree we were.  It was probably the nicest tree I’ve seen in a long time (London included).  But it was mostly for the staffers:  the children weren’t allowed out because of the inclement weather -- after all, it had been raining for days.
The group was actually informed that they couldn’t wander the halls, obviously for the protection of the kiddies, but also, because the doctors were doing their rounds and, lo and behold! Because the children were, in fact – sick.
So much for spreading good cheer. Next year maybe we should just send pre-recorded tapes in sterile bags instead.

Attenzione Tutte le Mamme!

This is so serious, I've decided to make my very own PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT. Of course, it's a weak attempt on my part to change centuries of Fear of Air in the Italian mamma psyche. But, there is one thing that trumps all the superstitions and unfounded fears: Health Issues. Take one look at the hordes of people visiting the local pharmacies here, and you'll see what I mean. But I digress.

This little bit of news, not picked up by any Italian newspaper, lest it spark a mad rush on pediatricians' offices, hospitals, psychologists and, not least of which, appliance stores, is earth shattering in its boldness:

PLACING FANS IN AN INFANT'S BEDROOM WILL REDUCE THE LIKELIHOOD OF SIDS - SUDDEN INFANT DEATH SYNDROME.

I'll write in Italian, just for good measure in the hopes that just one mamma out there actually reads my blog:

UN VENTILATORE NELLA CAMERA DI LETTO DI UN BEBE' POTREBBE PREVENIRE LA MORTE IN CULLA (SIDS)

Obviously, that implies that the fans are turned on each evening.

And of course, for you Italians out there, that would also imply that the fan goes on in your bedroom since that's probably where the baby will be for the next 12 years of his life.

Hopefully, this Public Service Announcement can stop the shutting of all windows, doors, sealing of cracks and other means of restricting all air to the little bambini of the Bel Paese.

Click here to read full report (or see side panel Notizie).

Size Matters

I’m in London this week, which is why you haven’t heard much from me. Aside from some of the obvious differences in architecture, the proliferation of pubs, and of course, the look of the people (they’ve got nuthin’ on the Italians), some things truly stand out: like all those protruding bellies. In a country which invented the princess style (or, Little House on the Prairie smocks), I’ve never seen so many umbilical cords since visiting the newborn room at a local hospital. It seems the whole country is pregnant.
It must be something in the water. And coming from a country with the lowest birth rate in the world, it makes for quite a surprising sight to behold.

Of course, unless you’re in the south, Italian women don’t even leave their house once pregnant. Here, you’ll see them running the London marathon. I’ll never forget a friend who wouldn’t even go out for a pizza—just because she was pregnant. Italians tell me that pregnancy is treated not so much as something to show off and celebrate as much as an illness to get over. Maybe Italians do make children, but, because of the Bella Figura Rule, those bellies are just not seen in public.

Once the kids are born, these British mums run around on/off buses, the tube, in stores, museums, kid play areas with kids in strollers, on leashes, in backpacks, wherever mum or the nanny feels like taking them (I must say, I haven’t seen many dads). I saw my pregnant neighbor walking her dog until she was 6 months pregnant; I haven’t seen her since (that was 2 1/2 years ago).

And considering there was a study revealing that the UK was the absolute worst place in the world to raise a child, I am very very impressed by the amount of optimism shown here by the general populace. But, whatever it is they’re putting in the water, perhaps the Italians can start lacing their water with it, too.
Shame that everyone drinks the bottled stuff in Italy.