Just some things I've been pondering...

Recently I’ve had the opportunity to get back in touch with people I haven’t heard from in years (a long-winded way of saying I’ve joined Facebook) and often old classmates are amazed and excited to hear I live in Italy, imaging scrawny little Michelle from 7th-grade English class today sipping espressos leisurely in sunny piazzas and buying lots of designer shoes on via Montenapoleone. Readers of this blog will know that’s not what my life is about. Don’t worry - this is not a rant or a whinge session. I promise.

All of this has got me to thinking about one of the questions I hear most often from friends back home, which is, “If Italian salaries are so low, why are Italians so well dressed and how can they afford to have nice cars and go out to restaurants?” This is especially true in Milan – Milan (the center, that is) feels very rich. And you see people driving and parking incredibly expensive cars in narrow cobblestoned streets that are not expensive-car friendly. I am no economist but I have formulated a theory as to how Italians can live so relatively well on so little.

The simplified explanation is that relative economic wellbeing in Italy is thanks to the famiglia. Let’s take a sample family that I think is reprsentative of many of the families I know here: A newly married couple in post-WWII Italy inherited a small apartment in Milan from a grandmother who died. They had two children, a boy and a girl. Over the years the couple saved and saved their modest incomes (and didn’t have a mortgage as they had inherited their apartment), putting aside money for seaside vacations every year and even buying a small apartment in the same building as an investment. The children lived at home until marriage. When the daughter got married, she was given as a wedding gift the small investment apartment and she moved into that with her husband. When the son got married, he too was “sistemato” (this means being set up, usually with a home or a job) by his new wife’s family with an apartment. The daughter and the son lived as modestly as their parents in small apartments with their respective families, saving their money and only buying the things they had money for and never using credit. They dressed well, ate well and vacationed each year as this was the Italian way but they didn’t have a lot of superfluous material “things” in their lives weighing them down. Like their parents, they had received their furnishings as wedding gifts and they never felt the need to buy anything new. The daughter and the son went on to have children and this would be the generation of twentysomethings and thirtysomethings today in Italy.

The lives of this generation are different in that though they too may be “sistemati” with inherited apartments, the job-for-life mentality of their parents’ and grandparents’ generation no longer exists and the work situation is much more precarious. Nonetheless, push still has not come to shove in that while “young people” (28-year-olds are still referred to as “giovani” here) earn very little, they are able to use that as their disposable income because their basic needs are covered since they either still live at home or don’t have rent expenses. They know where their next meal is coming from – mamma – and they are fine with that.

In the U.S. we tend to leave home young, move to a different city and set up our own “household,” which is an expensive undertaking. All of those pots, pans, extension cords and fans add up. Living in a divey apartment with several friends, existing on noodles with MSG-laden flavor packets and just trying to scrape by is a rite of passage (or it was when I finished high school). The idea was that you left home and lived well below the means of your parents as you were just starting out and it was time for you to prove whether you could “sink or swim.” There wasn’t the idea that you left home when you were already “set up.” Your fate was based on the economy at large, not necessarily on how much money your parents had in the bank (granted, many young Americans do rely on their parents financially but others can’t or are too proud because they want to “do it on their own.”)

I see the merits of both ways, and I am not advocating one and slamming the other. The Italian way is definitely less wasteful – Italians typically take up only the space they need, buy the things they need (with some designer extravagances, of course) and stay local. But it can also be stifling. You are born and die in the same town or city, often moving only within the same building. Your circle of friends include those you’ve known since childhood. You find a job not necessarily in the field that most interests you but in what is available in your birth city. If that means working in a factory when you’ve got a law degree, so be it. The American way is more “exciting” (at least for me) but if I think of all of the crap I accumulated and threw away in 20+ moves over the years, it was not all that practical economically or environmentally speaking. I met a lot of interesting people, had amazing experiences and tried to make the most of career opportunities. But I was also away from my family and some of my closest friends for all of those years. Again, pros and cons.

Recently an Italian friend asked me if Cristiano and I were thinking of having other kids but then she stopped herself in mid-sentence and said "Well, probably not. I mean, you've only got one family here and not two to help you out..." The idea was that we could only have two children if we had both families here to help us since Italian society (with its lack of affordable daycare options and services for children) doesn't do you any favors. Perhaps if my in-laws had given us an apartment (they didn't but they are incredibly generous people with what they have) and my mother was here buying my groceries and cooking my meals, I'd be on via Montenapoleone buying designer shoes.

I’m going a bit off course but getting back to the economic aspect, I think in Italy, it is the family that serves as a buffer from whatever problems are going on in the global economy. That has worked for the previous generations but I’m not sure how long it is going to work for this or future generations.