Italian Children

Italian children must be the most babied group of people in the entire world. I know that sounds like a rather sweeping statement, but I have some examples that I think will back up my point. Ever now and then I, and most Americans I know living here, get a little fed up with Italians and I think it is largely because we, Americans, just operate differently than Italians do and for me it is largely in the treatment that children receive. So much so that I don't know how Italians ever manage to become independent.

In just the past two days my views have been reinforced twice over. The first was taking the metro on Saturday afternoon. General etiquette anywhere in the world while riding public transportation is that younger people should give up their seats for elders and men give up their seats for women. The latter is true in Italy, but not the former. In the pecking order of who should be allowed to sit on a bus or train children between the age of 5-10 top the list. This to me is unbelievable. I have seen grandmothers give their seats to their grandchildren. On a few occasions I have given up my seat to an elder women, just to see her give it to a little kid standing behind her that I didn't see. Really?

Example number two came from my roommate's parents who stopped in Rome yesterday afternoon on their way to Florence. Keep in mind my roommate is 29. His parents brought so much food and other things for the kitchen we had to actually through out a few things of leftovers to make room in the fridge. Don't get me wrong, his mother is a great cook and I will certainly eat a good amount of the food she brought, but it just seems like a little bit of overkill to bring an entire fridge (and freezer) worth of food to your son who is 29. To top it all off his mother, who was in Rome for about 2 hours, spent half of that time ironing his shirts...