For my 19-month-old son Santo, living in Rome meant that a typical morning went something like this: get up, get dressed, get hoisted up and down by a hydraulic car lift in our local garage (the mechanic Paolo was one of his good friends), stop for a sugary cornetto for breakfast, help the barman make a café for Mama, sit on a random selection of parked motorini (motorbikes), hang out at our friend Emiliano’s alimentari sticking grubby hands on legs of prosciutto while being fed hunks of parmigiano, get kissed passionately by a wide variety of complete strangers.
I am fairly certain that this is not the routine spoonfed to increasingly fear-driven parents by modern British childcare experts. In fact, it would probably have had me cautioned by child-protection services in this country. For a strange thing has occurred. Somewhere in the past 15 years, the Brits have become more neurotic than Italians, the most child-centric race on the planet, when it comes to raising their offspring. Overtaking a nation that can spend an entire three-hour meal dissecting (verbally, not physically) the bowel movements of a ten-month-old family member is no mean feat. Yet somehow the pressure and competition in this country to raise perfect offspring has created a new, rather odd, and inherently unBritish culture of obsessive parenting.
I recently moved to London from southern Italy, toddler in tow, and as a newcomer to this phenomenon, I felt like a member of the Navi tribe standing in my local playground for the first time. Whatever happened to the good old days when British parents packed their kids off to boarding school at seven and didn’t pretend to like them more than the dogs? This generation micromanages its offspring and their day-to-day progress like overseers of a much longed-for house extension. And, like a property upgrade, it seems to involve throwing a great deal of money at ‘the problem’. In fact, when I told my friend Clint the cost of a half-day at my local Montessori he rightfully inquired: ‘Since when did you have to sell a kidney to pay for finger painting?’ One anxious mother actually confessed to me after touring this particular nursery: ‘I’m a little concerned about the academics.’ The academics? Lady, they’re pouring sand into a cup.
Clearly, this newfound interest in their progeny seems to preclude any kind of measurable joy or fun. The Brits are breeding like religious zealots, with IVF seemingly replacing the cocktail culture of the early 1990s. London is swarming with tribes of weary middle-aged parents, drowning in designer baby accessories and engaging in a civil war of one-upmanship over the correct way to raise their children. At least in Italy no one is judging you for the kind of birth you have or whether you are bottle-feeding your kid. There, as long as your child is wearing socks and mangia bene (eating well) then you are doing your God-given duty.
The angry mob over at Mumsnet would have gone into a feeding frenzy at my friend’s house near Ancona, where a newborn baby was unveiled for the first time to its excited chain-smoking relatives, all simultaneously exhaling smoke rings into the baby carrier, shouting Auguri! (congratulations) and Bellissima!
In Britain, avoidance of sugar (the crack cocaine of the under-twos) and television have somehow become the middle-class badges of honour of successful parenting. One local father watched with undisguised loathing as Santo attempted to cram an enormous biscotto into his mouth while announcing smugly, ‘My son has never touched sugar.’ Since when did a chocolate biscuit and the Disney Channel put them on the slope towards an Asbo? I can only guess what this man would have made of my Roman neighbour, who fed her nine-month-old daughter Margot an espresso every morning with her milk.
Yet behind the veil of concern lies the same age-old child-loathing culture. So while the British moral majority are outraged by a baby being placed in direct sunlight (‘child abuse’ they cry; in Italy, baby suntans — the final taboo — are fully condoned), or being subject to a whiff of second-hand smoke, they don’t want to be forced into close proximity with the little critters either. In Italy, on the other hand, childrearing remains a community effort. When my son once cried through the night, the grandmother next door confidently proclaimed those were the cries of otitis — an ear infection. And lo and behold, a trip to the doctor confirmed the diagnosis. But when a local London father, in his mid-fifties, gravely informed me that his eight-month-old son had been to A&E twice in the middle of the night and that neither he nor his wife had slept for 72 hours, you would assume the worst. In fact, the child also had an earache. But his parents seemed to lack anyone in their lives to say: ‘Get the kid an antibiotic and stop taking him to the hospital.’
It goes without saying that the infrastructure in London is geared towards kids in a way that things in Italy are not. As anyone who has ever spent time in Italy can attest, pretty much nothing works. But this is offset by the fact that every café, restaurant and market vendor in your neighbourhood will feed, adore, love and smother your child in baci. That contrast was highlighted for me recently when my son was playing in our London park. He went to sit with a group of uniformed workmen, happily babbling with them on a bench, at complete ease in the company of his new friends. Upon hearing we had just moved from Rome, I was informed that ‘no London mother would ever put their kids anywhere near us’. One man then sadly recounted an incident in which he had said hello to a ten-year-old boy, whose mother then promptly reported him to the authorities. He was told never to speak to a child again. So much for community.
In Rome, our local playground (situated in the nearby piazza) could arguably have been designed by an architect with a not-so-subtle death wish for the under-fives. Instead of swings, there was a Henry Moore-like metal sculpture for climbing and a few other unbelievably strange play ‘devices’. But here’s the thing. I never once saw or heard of a kid getting hurt. Daily, all of the neighbourhood children faithfully brought their bikes and scooters to the piazza. They brought footballs to kick, chalk to draw with and toy prams to push. And they all played together.
Once in the piazza, toys became communal, and the odd child who made a fuss about sharing got a stern talking to from Mama or Nonna. The occasional fight or tears were soon allayed by a piece of pizza. In late afternoon, it was unbelievably noisy but full of life and joy. And even better for parents, the piazza was lined with bars and cafés, so in warmer months you could enjoy a glass of wine while your kids played outside. While it was not utopia, it was more or less what growing up should be — full of life, laughter, hugs, a few tears and some good snacks.
Upon arriving in London, I decided to enrol my son in a local nursery for three mornings a week so he could continue to have some social interaction with other kids. With pouring rain and recent snow, the playground was not a daily option. But on his first day there, I wondered what was missing from the place. Then I realised. Laughter. There was none.
For the bargain price of £467 a month, I was offered three mornings a week of laughter-free childcare to be overseen by four disgruntled and miserable childcare workers. And to cap it off, ‘policy’ dictated that my son would have to be harnessed into his chair while eating, in a Hannibal Lecter-style restraint, to prevent him from falling the full two inches that separated the chair from the floor. We declined the offer. Instead, he’s going to practise hi s dance moves to the soundtrack of Hannah Montana until the weather warms up, interspersed with his new part-time job helping out in the kitchen at the local Italian deli. One perk of the job? All the prosciutto and biscotti he can eat. As our Italian Nonna next door would say, ‘Che bello!’