Saturday, August 19, 2017

Moving to Italy: Children Welcome Here

The story of our move to Italy starts with "Arrival" on the June 26, 2017 blog post.


In spite of their pragmatic attitude about family size, most of the Italians we met genuinely cherished children. Instead of being frowned at because we had so many, we seemed to be welcomed with smiles and caramelle (candies) wherever we went. In early July, we took all of the children on a shopping trip to the city of Casale. The shopkeepers’ faces lit up as we walked in the door. This contrasted with similar trips in California where the smiles of the American clerks had faded as they saw our brood, and their eyes darted back and forth to make sure our children didn’t touch anything. I can’t say that I really blamed them. I had seen out-of-control children destroy store displays, bump into people, and often break things. Even though we had played a game with the boys so they walked through the stores with their hands behind their backs, and we had kept the twins in their stroller, the clerks in American stores had still tracked us suspiciously.

That is why it struck us so forcefully when our children were welcomed in the Italian stores. Of course we thought our children beautiful, but not enough to stop commerce. But the Italian clerks came out from behind the counter, no matter how many people were waiting to be served, and stooped to talk to our babies. The customers, far from looking annoyed, joined them in clamoring around us. The children delighted in the attention, and the candies. As we walked along the street, strangers stopped us to comment on the fact that we had four children, how beautiful they were, how lucky we were, and how young we looked to have so many. I realized later that they also thought we must be very rich to afford four children. We were far from it, but to the Italians we met, like the immigration officer in the airport, a large number of children was a reason for joy. My assumptions about the Italian culture were being smashed anew almost every day! I had been guilty of stereotyping an entire country based on what I had seen and read in the media. Slowly, slowly, I began to reserve judgement, to wait, to watch, and to see before assuming anything! Through my experiences in Italy I learned to have enormous compassion for immigrants who arrive floundering in our own country.

All of this attention centered on the children was very welcome, but it also served to set us apart from the locals, which was the opposite of what we wanted. We were different, and it showed. Not only did we wear foreign-looking clothes, struggle with the language, and request things that were not available, but we had secured for ourselves a privilege that our neighbors could not afford, a large family. This didn’t help us in our quest to assimilate into the local culture. But we were determined to keep trying.

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