Xenophobe's Guide to the Italians

Family Matters

The family is far and away the most important social, economic, organisational and political unit in Italy.

The nuclear family is divided into: the father, the head of the family, who thinks he does all the work and decision-making; the mother, who in actual fact does all the hard work and takes all the important decisions; the sons, who are always spoilt and never really learn how to compete efficiently; and the daughters, who are never spoilt and as a result are far more capable than their brothers with whom they have to compete at a disadvantage from a very early age.

The extended family is a very large-scale social unit, including all possible relatives. It is seen at christenings, weddings, and funerals, and generally involves large numbers of people.

Family functions are occasions of enormous ostentation and generosity, where the pecking order of power and wealth in the family is carefully evaluated. An Italian will even go as far as to pretend to be seriously ill in order not to go to a second cousin’s wedding where he fears he might cut a brutta figura if he hasn’t enough money for an expensive present and a new suit.

The Italian family is a highly sophisticated network of patronage and power held together by a complex system of exchanging presents and performing favours. Going against the wishes of the family is hard and in reality so difficult for most Italians that few are inclined to try.

Italian women are brilliant actresses. Although they are completely emancipated and behave exactly as they want, when and where they want, they go through life pretending that they are quiet and subservient and that Italian men rule the roost.

It is really only an act, for Italian women rule the family. Italian girlfriends and wives know that image is important to their men, so they let them think they are big, macho, decision-makers. However, they also know that their men-folk have been so mollycoddled as children that they are able to do very little for themselves apart from looking good, drinking coffee, fathering children, and then playing with the children’s toys. Italian women know all this because they have always taken great care to pamper their male children, thereby rendering them almost completely dependent. The secret of power is handed on by one generation of Italian women to the next: faking subservience is a small price to pay for power in the family.

Italian males rarely leave the nest and, even when they do, these mammoni (Mummy’s boys) usually only move into the house across the road, or the flat next door. Statistics show that nearly 40% of Italians in their early thirties still live at home with their parents.

Behind every great Italian man there is a great Italian woman, sometimes his wife or his mistress, but usually his mother. The Italian male grows up thinking his mother is the Virgin Mary, and so naturally he thinks he is Jesus, or God’s gift to the world anyway, or to its womenfolk at least.

It is not surprising that Italian males find it very difficult to leave home. Their mothers make it hard for them to do so by making sure that their sons are so cosseted that they have no real wish to leave. Even when they are married, they continue to behave as if they aren’t, taking their clothes home at least once a week for their mother to wash and iron.

They end up treating home as a hotel, just like teenagers in northern European countries. Why give up a life of luxury and financial security with a woman who treats you as the Son of God for an uncertain future with a woman who might ask you do things around the house that you have never learnt to do, like making your bed or drying the dishes?

In fact young Italian males have no choice. Not only is there little tradition of living away from home during their student years, but it is unusual to find decent jobs until they are in their thirties. Furthermore, the absence of suitably priced accommodation makes it practically impossible for them to afford to move out. They find themselves caught in a trap; wanting to live on their own, but unable to leave the nest and under fire for not doing so. And the catch might not end there: these days a third of all Italian marriages end in divorce, in many cases because the wives feel unable to compete with the mothers of their mammoni.

Italian children are allowed to be both seen and heard; in fact, they must be both seen and heard, and be on show all the time, except, of course, between 2 and 5 p.m., when they should be having their afternoon nap. All Italian children take a siesta, which means they are not too tired to take part in the passeggiata, when all over Italy people begin moving into the empty streets, to see and be seen, after the sun has begun to lose its heat. Many Italians never lose the habit of taking an afternoon nap, which might explain why they and their children still seem to have boundless energy at midnight.

There is just one problem though: the number of bambini is on the decline. One explanation is the cost: designer baby clothes and foods can be a heavy burden on the family budget; another is that spending time with their children might cramp their parents’ social style. So children are dressed as miniature adults and exposed to most aspects of adult life. They are welcomed at restaurants and expected to be present at all family activities and functions. They grow up much faster than their northern European peers and at an early age develop the key skills necessary for ‘getting by’ and for performing on the great stage of life.

Italians are on the whole wonderful with children, even with obstreperous and ugly ones. As the old Neapolitan saying runs, ‘Ogni scarafone è bello a mamma soja’ – ‘Every beetle is beautiful to its mother’.

Generally wielding the financial power and patronage within the family, the nonni (grandparents) are careful to indulge their grandchildren and inculcate in them the importance of returning favours for presents, thereby ensuring that when they, in turn, become nonni, their families will look after them well.

Belonging to an Italian family is a cradle to the grave contractual agreement.

For the Italians animals must have a practical use. Dogs must be able to bark at strangers and so be justified as guard dogs. Cats must be able to keep the mice at bay. Pets must amuse the children or perform a role as a fashion accessory. If animals fit none of these categories then they can only serve one purpose, they must be for eating.

The Italians will kill and eat almost anything that runs, flies or swims. When the shooting season starts in September, the Italian male will dress up as a hunter, go to the countryside and blast away at everything that moves. Then he will return home triumphant in the evening with three dead skylarks and two dead hedgehogs. These will be served up to the family with enormous pride at lunch the next day – at last il papà has done something useful for the family.

The importance of friendship may be over-shadowed by the role of the family, but it plays a key role in Italian society. Italians are highly gregarious people and love belonging to groups or cliques. The idea of belonging to a group is seen as natural and essential.

‘Real’ friendships are usually formed early on in life, at school or with neighbours, and tend to be lifelong and important. Groups of old friends are often comparatively closed and admit few new members.

Other ‘real’ friends can be made at university, at work, playing sport, and so on, but tend to be more rare. These friendships should perhaps be considered ‘useful’ rather than ‘real’. Most adult Italians belong to a whole network of ‘useful’ friendships: the good dentist who will extract your teeth ‘at half-price’, the smart lawyer who will present your case free of charge, the lady in the bread shop who will always keep a loaf of your favourite bread.

Then there are ‘dangerous’ friendships – those you would be better off without, often linked to ‘offers you can’t refuse’. The sister of one of Italy’s most famous judges, who was killed by a car bomb while leading the Palermo courts in their fight against the mafia, is continuing her brother’s fight. She says she has few friends, commenting that it is exactly when people start being too friendly that you really have to worry.

Visitors sometimes accuse the Italians of wearing their hearts on their sleeves, but this ‘superficial’ friendliness is often misunderstood. They are being treated as friends without anything but friendship being expected in return, something that Italians rarely grant each other. There are no strings attached: they will not be asked to help Salvatore’s second cousin Concetta find a job when she comes to their country in the spring.

The Italians are eminently practical, and everything must have its use. Italian homes tend to be small and beautifully looked after, with the number of rooms kept to a minimum. Guest bedrooms are rare – “They can stay in a hotel, can’t they?” Much of Italian life is lived in public, and so the home tends to be treated like a star’s dressing room where Italians go to change and relax between acts. Most homes have one room where visitors can be welcomed which contains all the best furniture and pictures. However, this is usually off-limits to the family and so rarely used that in winter it is freezing cold; there seems no sense in heating it.

Many Italian families have a second or even third home, at the seaside or in the mountains. These are generally small, one- or two-room apartments with bunk beds where the whole family can sleep on holiday.

Land tends to be considered much too valuable for growing flowers (unless, of course, they can be sold), so Italian gardens are almost always kitchen gardens, and the Italians are brilliant at growing large quantities of wonderful fruit and vegetables on tiny plots of land, or even on their balconies.