Word: italianize
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Each year, without fail, The Crimson publishes an editorial denouncing Columbus Day. Yet again, the editorial board has exposed a saddening ignorance of what the holiday represents to many people in this country, specifically Italian Americans...
...Italy in particular? "It can be extreme," she says of a child's attachment to casa and mamma. This extra-close relationship between Italian mothers and their children is thought to have its origins in the economic and political history of the country. For centuries, the Italian peninsula was a poverty-stricken place with weak governments, meaning that the family was the only source of protection and economic support for people. More recently, psychologists and economists believe the mammone problem is rooted in the economic precariousness of a debt-ridden nation that has been in gradual decline since its post...
...stereotype is not far off. A disproportionate number of Italian men enter their 30s - and in some cases their 40s - still completely reliant on their mothers to do their cleaning, cook their meals, iron their clothes and keep a roof over their heads. According to a survey published last year in Psychology Today, a full 37% of men from the ages of 30 to 34 still live with their mothers in Italy. (See pictures of Italians in America...
...Still, the worst that these Italian mothers can usually be accused of is doting too much and not forcing their sons to grow up and do their own laundry. Now, however, in an extreme case that has made headlines across the nation, a court has been asked to consider whether a mother's love for her son - and that of his grandparents too - was so intense, it could be considered a form of child abuse...
...According to Italian economists Enrico Moretti and Marco Manacorda, who have studied the phenomenon, the issue also comes down to culture. They've found that some Italian parents will actually pay their grown children not to move out. "Italians, unlike parents from most other countries," Moretti says, "like living with their grown children." Felici-Bach's experience with her Italian husband, though, is slightly different. Born and raised in Rome, he left home for good at 20. But, as it turns out, John Felici has an English mother...