Baby Love

If reincarnation exists, I'd like to come back as a baby in our Italian village. The adoration that would come my way! The faces that would light up at the sight of me. My feet would be tickled, my cheeks lovingly tweaked. Hundreds of kisses would be showered on me. Sweets and presents would be thrust into my tiny hands. I'd be elaborately decked out in baby finery.

There would be abundant sympathy and a frantic desire to comfort me when I was unhappy. I would be called "Amore" (love) by everyone. If I made a mess at a risortante, I would be told "non importa" (loosely, no one cares). If I happened to come back as a blonde, blue-eyed baby, I could own the town.

It is a cliche that Italians love babies, but it is easy to see how the cliche got started if you accompany a baby around this paese (small country village). A visit to the forno (oven) for bread can take up a half hour while the commessa (sales woman) drops everything at the sight of the baby, hands him biscotti (cookies) and takes him from his stroller for a cuddle. The other customers forget about their pane (bread) and join in the baby love.

A stroll down a side street can bring an unknown woman out of her negozio (shop) with a balloon for "il bimbo" (slang for baby boy). Preening Italian males in their designer shirts, pants, shoes, sunglasses, and probably underwear, let down their stylish guard to coo at a baby.

With such affection for babies, it is surprising to learn that Italy has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, with an average of 1.3 children. This is despite the ban on birth control mandated by the Catholic Church.

People of all ages may fill the churches on Sunday mornings, but they have obviously decided the Pope and other unmarried, childless clergy in the Vatican are not going to tell them how many children to have. My take on that is if you don't play the game, you don't make the rules. But I digress.

Young people in Italy delay marriage for a few reasons, but one of the most obvious is the tendency of the Italian male to live at home. This is accepted and often encouraged by his parents (see "Mamma's Boys," October 22, 2009). These men are so numerous they have a name: "mammoni." When they finally decide to walk down the aisle, it is often with a pregnant bride or with their baby as part of the wedding party.

More and more Italian women work outside the home, making large families difficult to manage. There is not a strong and reliable day care system, either. At least in this town, grandparents tend to the children while the mother and father are at work.

Everyone seems to benefit from that solution, but some families don't have the benefit of such an arrangement (though I am hard pressed at this moment to think of even one family here who does not have it). Things are different, certainly, when parents and grandparents do not live near each other, or if the grandparents are still working themselves.

Our daughter and husband, en route to Italy with their (our) baby, told us about an encounter at airport security in the USA. Naturally, they were carrying some baby food in their hand luggage for an eight hour journey. The TSA agent, full of self importance and stupidity, insisted the baby food jars be opened in order to swab them. This meant the baby food, unless used within an hour, which it would not be, had to be thrown away.

When they left Italy, our daughter worried about security at the airport here. We assured her that Italian security, while thorough and quite strict, would use common sense when they saw them with the baby and all the paraphernalia needed to make a transatlantic journey with one. Sure enough, the three sailed through security, but not without at least one or two of the security agents smiling and waving "Ciao" to the baby.