Rather than spending this week reading only research articles, I've branched out a bit and started reading some newspaper articles on the Italian family--specifically young adults who choose to live at home, with their parents, until their late twenties and thirties. Some articles claim that the young Italian adult, especially the men, are just lazy and would rather have their mom cook their meals, make their beds, and pay for their living expenses, so that they can avoid responsibilities and just have fun. Other articles claimed that these young adults
had to stay living at home because of the poor economy--even if these young people did want to be independent, get married, and have a family, they wouldn't be financially prepared to support them.
It's hard for me to understand, living in the United States where independence is so important for young adults. Since the time I was in grade school, I knew that I would move out, go to college and be on my own. While there was a brief period when I was 9 that I decided I'd just build a mansion and have my parents live in one wing of it .so I never had to be separated from them, in all seriousness, as scary as independence was to think about sometimes, it was something I looked forward to and something I desired. Now, having been living independently and financially supporting myself for the past four years, I cannot imagine ever giving up that independence. It's not that I don't love my family, on the contrary, I talk to my mom and grandma on the phone almost everyday, and am meeting up for lunch with my brother in 15 minutes, but I
value independence.
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| Old Man or Couple Kissing? |
What I've realized is that I can't judge, or even study, Italian culture based on my value system. In class we did an activity where we read a short story and then had to rank order the characters in the story from best to worst. You would be shocked at this disagreement in the class. I would rank a character as good because they had certain characteristics that I valued, and thought were important, but not all of my classmates valued the same characteristics. Looks like I need to learn a bit more about what values are most important to Italians, and I don't think I'll be able to do that fully until I'm actually immersed in Italy. First bump in the road: trying to figure out how to best study a cohort of people whom I don't know. What's that quote..."stop giving roadblocks permissions to be obstacles to your goals." Thank you. Yes. Also, they say that most success springs from obstacles or failure--while it's not the most comforting thing to realize that I have to rework some of my plans, I think my project--and experience as a whole--will be so much better in the long run because of my widening perspective. It is just amazing to me how two people can look at the same thing, and have two completely different perspectives.
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| Duck or Rabbit? |
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| Old Couple or Men Playing Guitar? |
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