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Italian mothers, sons very attached

 
Published May 11, 2000|Updated Sept. 27, 2005

When Pino Liuzzo divorced in his early 30s, he did what most Italian men his age would do. He moved back in with his mamma. She did his cooking and ironed his shirts.

Liuzzo, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Rome, remarried at age 53. After he and his French wife honeymooned in the United States, Liuzzo brought his laundry home for his mother to wash.

When his wife, Chantal, recently reminded him of this, Liuzzo could only shrug sheepishly. "This is a very Italian habit. I am a typical Italian son," he said.

Liuzzo, now 58, has never lived more than a mile away from his mother. Like most Italian sons, Liuzzo and his mother have always been close, and now that she is elderly and infirm, he checks in with her by phone at least twice a day.

"He's very attached to me because I spoiled him," explained 88-year-old Guiseppa Liuzzo with a glint of triumph and pride.

This ancient bond between mother and son is so deeply ingrained in the Italian character that it has acquired a name: mammismo. Sons afflicted with extreme cases of it are called mammoni.

A study by Istat, Italy's leading compiler of sociological statistics, found this trait to be stronger than ever. A remarkable 70 percent of unmarried Italian men reach the age of 30 while still living with their parents, a percentage that has increased sharply over the past decade.

Even when they marry, they do not always move out, and if they do, they rarely stray far. The survey found that nearly 43 percent of all married children lived within a half-mile or so of the maternal nest.

Technology has only made it easier to cling to the apron strings.

Franco Romagnoli, an Italian writer now living in the United States, returned recently to his Roman roots. To gather material for a new book, he eavesdropped on the mobile phone conversations of Italian men.

"Ninety percent of them are talking to their mothers," he said. "Yes, Mamma. Of course, Mamma. Certainly, Mamma."

There are reasons for this extreme filial devotion. As Luigi Barzini observed in his 1964 classic The Italians, no institution is more important than the family, and no member of the family more prized than its sons.

Italian women define themselves by producing sons and by doting excessively upon them. This creates a model of manhood that seems a bit paradoxical, mammismo versus machismo.

Consider the recent TV images of young American soldiers heading off to Kosovo or the Persian Gulf: A manly hug and kiss for their wives or girlfriends, a brave smile for the TV cameras, emotions held firmly in check. In Italy, by contrast, the same situation produces forlorn choruses of "Mamma, Mamma, Mamma," as fierce-looking Italian soldiers wail unabashedly in the embrace of their weeping mothers.

"In a way, it is a matter of reciprocal complicity," said Ilvo Diamanti, director of the North-East Foundation, an Italian think tank. "The family has increased its role and weight to compensate for the failure of other institutions. At the same time, institutions have a hard time establishing their role because the family is so strong."

He said one reason Italian sons (and daughters) live with their parents so long is that the state has failed to provide affordable housing for young people.

While the norm in the United States is for sons and daughters to begin moving out of the family house about age 18, often to attend college, the University of Rome, with 150,000 students, does not have any dormitories. Students are expected to live at home.

Whatever its cause, mammismo is a fact of life. "This is the reality. I have to deal with it every day," said Franco Censi, who runs a matrimonial service in Rome.

Most of his male clients are between 35 and 45 and almost invariably live with their mothers. The mothers, he said, fall into two categories: those who jealously guard against any female rivals, and those who want their sons to find a wife but insist on choosing the wife themselves.