Culture 1

Although 'Culture' is quite a short word, it refers to an exceedingly complex concept. Our culture gives us, often, they way we think and reason. If you have never lived for a length of time in another country, or you are not someone who has extensive dealings with foreigners, you will only have a vague idea of what cultural differences actually are. This entry in my blog is my own personal attempt to get my head how the two cultures differ. This episode will deal with an issue which is close to my heart, seeing as I am a father.

Before I go on let me say that on the surface there are similarities, Italian people get up, go to work, get home and go to bed and then rinse and repeat this process in much the same way as English people do. Lots of Italians would rather not work at all, much in the same way as lots of English people would like to avoid work. Both countries have lottery and pools schemes which have always attracted millions of people hoping for a get-rich-quick solution which will allow them to remove themselves from the routine drudgery which is life for most people. Not much difference here then. However, when you start scrubbing away the thin veneer of daily life and start taking a closer look at family and parenthood, you start to notice some differences, or at least I think you do.

As most of you will know because lots has been written about this, Italians regard the family as being one of the most important units in their lives. English people, on the other hand, seem to regard families as a not so pleasant fact of life. At the moment I'm referring to families in the sense of all close relations. One of the differences between Italy and the UK, which I have noted, strangely enough, father that I am, is in attitudes to children.

I would say that many women in both countries seem to have a semi-automatic longing to have children almost as though it were a type of psychological need. Men, on the other hand, in the UK, are not always so keen to get in the family way. Many English fathers suffer in silence whilst putting up with their parental duties. When pushed, though, they will often admit that children do provide them with a lot of pleasure, although it's often not too clear whether the pleasure outweighs the pain or vice versa. A father I know, once said that if he had not had kids he could have had a nice fast car instead and it seemed that a good car would have been a more than acceptable alternative to children. Another chap, bought his wife a cat to try to take her mind off becoming a mother. Another group of men spent their time trying to get time off from their families so that they could do something more interesting instead. I once ran a section of a youth club, something which I did for a good few years and I had boys and one or two girls from 8 to 18 years of age in the club. In all the time that I was involved with all these kids, I only came across one who seemed to be the sort of child I would have liked to have had. This experience made me decide to leave the fatherhood thing to my brother, who although rather reluctant, was a much better candidate for the parent thing than I.

As a possible consequence of entering fatherhood reluctantly, fathers in England seem to do their utmost to impress on their children how important it is to be independent and how you are unnatural if you don't leave home at the earliest possible opportunity. However, it is not just the fathers that encourage their offspring to leave the family nest. Most UK children really like the idea of living alone, or at least not really alone alone, but living away from home. Often children will leave their town of origin and probably never return there. This is especially true of graduates, but may not be the case with people not lucky enough to end up with high flying careers. Some people, of course, are happy with their lots and going or staying in the area where they grew up in makes no difference for them. There are always exceptions to any rule.

Now, as you may have been expecting, let's take a look at Italy. Here, despite the fact that the country has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, if not the world, children are viewed through completely different eyes by the men of the country. Kids are doted upon and many dads just wouldn't want to be anything else. I remember one guy who did nothing other than devote all his time to his son in the evenings and at weekends, another did the same for his daughter. One bloke went out and spent €800 on a baby suit for his newly born little one. Oh, there are ructions and arguments in Italian families and teenagers cause plenty of problems too, but many will still have a nice new scooter to run around on and the latest trainers on their feet. Parents do not really encourage their children to leave home, quite the opposite. A friend of ours announced to her parents that she was off to live with her boyfriend and her announcement was greeted by tears from the mother and dissuasive comments from her father. I've read articles about children staying at home until they are well into their thirties, only to finally move out once they get married. Now where do you think many of them move? Well, sometimes it is a flat next to one of the in-laws or above or below them, or at least in the same appartment block. Other times, it is a flat which is within walking distance of the in-laws. The braver Italians may actually manage to get a flat on the other side of their town of birth. A very senior manager at a major multinational here in Milan, who I taught once, told me that it was nigh on impossible to get Italians to move from one town to another. None of them wants to leave friends or family. This was a few years ago to be honest, but I still don't see any real evidence that the situation is changing. To tell yet another story, I know of a chap who moved up here from the south of Italy, but could not get his wife to move. This chap is now divorced, but spends much of his free time going down to the other end of the country to see his young son. I trust you have got the picture by now. For Italian fathers, children have great significance, particularly if they happen to be male, in which case they will continue the family name. Mothers also seem to love their sons in what sometimes seems to be an almost unnatural fashion. The Italian for 'mothers boy' exists and it is in wide and common everyday usage. Mothers will often smother their little darlings with affection and often interfere once the lad is old enough to start seeing potential brides. Parents will cry when they see their little ones go off on their first school trips, I read on another website recently. Being a parent is different here. Not all fathers are quite so devoted and not all mothers dominate their children, but there are many more parents who do this in Italy than there are in the UK, of that I am sure. Kids are not disciplined so much here as in the UK. And they go to bed just about when they start to collapse with tiredness, or 9:30ish. It's different.

So, what happens when you throw a rather reluctant English father in with an Italian mother? Well, you get sparks, flames and some eruptions. My other half was not too impressed with the way she saw English people bringing up their kids, she thought the method was too mechanical and that the child on the receiving end seemed to be rather sad. This does not bode well for my hopes with regard to imposing some Anglo-Saxon ways on my son and heir. The road ahead, sorry that should be tunnel ahead, seems rather long and so far, I have not been able to see even a glimpse of any light. As my better half commented, 'E così'. 'That's the way it is.'