Little Surprise

    Whenever Rachel, our two-year-old, runs away from me when I tell her to come, or throws herself on the floor in a tantrum when I tell her no second cookie, or slaps my leg when I require her to sit in her stroller, I look at my other children in earnest and say,"This is why you should never have children until you are really ready. Until you have your education and have travelled the world." I don't know if this idea of parenhood ain't all easy is sinking in, or is one of many "Mom sayings"  that they will laugh and shake their head about later. ["What the heck was Mom talking about half the time..." is the beginning of a conversation I imagine my adult children having more than once.] Still, I persist, because while I love being a mother, I also know that I am happy I went to college and saw some of the world before I was required for two a.m. feedings.

     In America, toy babies are cute. They are to be bathed, to sweetly say "Mama," and --like the Waldorf one I got for Maddy when she was two -- to stay perpetually asleep.  In Italy, they take toy babies to a whole other level.  In Italy, they have toy babies that poop. Once these toy babies are fed, a stinky poop hits their diapers. Ka-ka complete,  the baby says, "Sopresina!"  This pooping baby is advertised on T.V., and in it, the "Mom" of the "baby" holds her nose while the "baby" poops with a loud fart. In the next scene, the little girl, with an [apparently] clean baby, gives the baby's bottom a little pat and smiles at the camera. All is well again.  Until the next feeding, one assumes.  If the pooping baby isn't enough of Mommy Reality, you can also get a toy baby with a green, mucus-like liquid that needs to be wiped away every few minutes.  One can imagine that after playing with these almost too-real babies, you not only become an expert diaper changer and snot wrangler, but wary of motherhood besides.  Cleaning poop, after all,  is only fun so many times.  I wonder if these little dolls help explain Italy's small population growth, at least a bit.
                                                                                                                                                      

      Often times, Italian men are blamed for the low population growth. Their unwillingness to move out of home. Their macho outlook that requires a wife to be too many things all at once. I really have no idea about any of that, but I will say that I see more Italian men at the playground with their kids, and at school picking up their kids, that I have ever seen in America. And while their gelled hair and up-turned collars might not scream "Men Who Help Do The Dishes," they are there, with sweaters casually tied over their shoulders, pushing swings, playing peek-a-boo, reading books, being funny monsters. They are there, throwing little girls in the air and giving them raspberry kisses. Perhaps they missed out on those Italian dolls when they were kids.
                                                                                                                                                       

      Still, gender roles are more strongly defined--or at least differently defined-- than we are used to at home.  My eldest daughter, Maddy, is athletic. She is fast and strong, and can throw a ball. On the other hand, in her class of girl-jocks at home -- those hockey stars, soccer lovers, martial arts experts -- she never feels like an athlete. Nor, truth told, does she usually have much enthusiasm  for playing sports with the other kids. But here, the fact that she wants to run at all makes her unusual. In gym class, she was the only girl who wanted to and was willing to play dodge ball, and the few times she has been outside at break, she runs around the yard.  The girls, she said, stand to the side with their "party shoes" on,unwilling to take part in any athletic fun. She is enjoying this new definition of self.                 
                                                  

     Somehow, though, these Italian girls standing to the side must take command of their shoes.  For they turn into Italian women who, perhaps in defiance of their gender role or in an embrace of it, learn how to bike with speed and skill while wearing three-inch heels and gorgeous clothes.  I see them all over Mantova, looking fabulous, high-heels on the bike gears, a tight skirt with a high back slit, a baby in the seat [with a wool hat but no helmet].  They zip past cars and Vespas, flying by me while navigating Mantova's cobble streets. Me: air Nike flats, loaded-up stroller, sweat pouring down.  How do they learn to do motherhood like that?

    There must be another doll I have missed.

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