I remember the first time I’ve been dating an Italian: with my girl friends, we were trying to understand what will be the standard behavior of an Italian. I was joking about the fact that maybe his mum will call. Well, I was not wrong. The first night I saw him, he left me half an hour alone cause his mum was doing what I call “the night call”… I thought: “this is amazing dude, he’s 34, getting called by his mum every night at the same hour, and can’t even make an exception”. Basically the complete opposite of the American trend where, once you go to university, you’re considered as a grown up and see the communication amount with your parents considerably reduced.
I discovered later that most of the guys that had to leave their hometown (mainly from the South) to find a job or study in Milan, and consequently live far from their parents, receive a call of their mum every night… In Italy, I guess the right word is “mammoni”.
I tried to discuss it with people that were doing it but a girl told me in a aggressive mode: “yes but we don’t see our parents more than 3 times a year (for Xmas, Easter, August), so it’s normal to talk to your mum EVERY night”. I have to say I’m really impressed by the family power. When you see all those people at 30 still living with their parents, in France, you would be considered as “looser”. I know this is not linked only to culture but economical context as well, the salaries being so low and the rent so high, youngs try to stay with their parents as long as they can. In brief, it’s what French people would call Tanguy paradise (Tanguy being a movie about a 30 year old boy that refuses to leave his parents house whereas he works and earns a lot of money. At one point the parents are pissed of having no intimacy, seeing a new girlfriend every morning in the kitchen, and decide to “get rid of” their child. At the end, the guy leaves for China). I guess for once, Italy is much closer to China than France... at least for family concept.
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