You really have not heard the word “mama” until you’ve heard it come out of an Italian’s mouth. Better still, from the mouths of your own Italian children.
“MA-MAA!”
Each syllable is drawn out, flush full of adoration which can only be pronounced and delivered as sacred sound offerings that are best articulated with slightly pained facial expressions and excited hand gestures for emphasis.
I’m not trying to be arrogant nor do I think that I will always hold this high, infallible status in my sons’ lives forever. (All parents, at least in Italy I believe, secretly DO wish to always stay on this pedestal for time eternal, and I’m no exception despite my American roots.)
I live in Italy, the land of mammoni. The word, if you’re not familiar with it, normally refers to the full-grown Italian men and women who so adore their mothers that they have trouble launching into their own independent adult lives, often living at home well into their 30’s, 40’s, and beyond. Not that the parents really mind, mind you. Here the hardcore mammoni can and do sue their parents in court for asking them to move out before they are ready.
I’m not here to talk about other people’s choices, cultural differences about when a child is supposedly expected to go off into the world, or even the sluggish Italian economy that makes it near impossible for bright young people to get jobs and live independently from their parents in this country.
My sons were born in Rome and are only just three and five years old. I don’t actually expect that we will remain in Italy long enough for them to come of age or even become true adult mammoni here. And yet, it’s really the only word (once you take away the negativity associated with it) that can describe their utter devotion.
Did I make them this way with my incessant hugging/cuddling or was it Italian culture at large? Are we both to blame? In American culture it’s considered cute to have a “Daddy’s Girl,” but beware the so-called hapless, enabling parents of the “Mama’s Boy.”
Personally I find my boys charmingly lovable to me and everyone else as well as able to maintain their own confident, social, independent budding personalities. Why, I wonder, in my own culture or even my husband’s (German) is it considered a sign of weakness when a boy loves his mother unabashedly, especially at such a young age?
My sons star in my 2014 animated short about the extreme highs and lows of parenting. Click to watch “This Too Shall Pass.”
I’m writing this a day before Mothers Day, La Festa della Mamma, at the side of my three year-old son Nico’s hospital bed as he recovers from a thankfully minor surgery. After watching him helplessly about an hour ago as he was wheeled off to his fate (his last words as they rolled him away were “ma-ma?”), I reflected on not just what motherhood means to children or anyone who has a mother, but also to those responsible for children. Here by children I also mean those even without blood ties, animals (fur babies), or even those blossoming in an amazing garden (plant babies).
Not everyone on this planet was meant to be a parent in the traditional sense of the word. But whomever you love and are responsible for, I think it should be celebrated and even encouraged that they should love you back whole-heartedly and unapologetically regardless of their gender. It’s NICE to be appreciated.
We may move some day from la bella paese Italia, but I hope that my Roman-born sons will always keep at least a little bit of their mammoni tendencies inside. Cultivating love for one’s mother, father, family, friends, community, and fellow Earthlings is probably one of the most radical, progressive, and peaceful things we as 21st century global citizens can do for ourselves and for future generations.
So once all the chocolates, flowers, and Hallmark cards have been opened and discarded after Mother’s Day, let’s remember that the love between parents and children is no small and trivial thing.
I for one am glad to have these wonderfully weird American/German/Roman mammoni in my life. Just remind me to make sure they are at least doing their own laundry when they’re 40 or I’ll need to see MY lawyer.
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Feeling warm and fuzzy now? View award-winning animated short about 21st century parenting, This Too Shall Pass.
