Troppe caramelle!
My question for Italian parents, teachers, caregivers of children, and strangers in the post office: What on earth are y'all thinking handing out candies to every child who passes you by?
Let's take a sample day: I walk out of the house with the Bambina. The friendly chauffeur, who happens to be standing beside his car and waiting for our executive neighbour, sees the Bambina and, you got it, he gives her a candy.
We go to the post office and take a number. We are number 100 and they are currently dealing with number 18 at the counter. The old folks waiting beside us wouldn't dream of giving me and the Bambina one seat between us, but here's a sugar-and-artificial-flavour-laden candy to rot your girl's teeth and make her even more hyper than she already is.
I take the Bambina to her school, where the teacher, being French and in a French school, wouldn't dream of handing out so much as a cookie crumb to the kids without permission, but that's okay, 'cause all the other parents (who happen to be Italian) give their kids (and mine) candy that the school won't provide.
We drop in on our neighbours to say hello and ask if their baby daughter is feeling better after having had a fever the night before. They say yes, and pass the candy dish over to the Bambina.
We head to dance lesson, where the wonderful teacher spends an hour each week transforming our darling girls into elegant ballerinas - and then at the end of the lesson, hands them each a candy. The second time this happened, my friend Laura (who happens to be Italian herself, so this is not just my anglo-saxon bourgeois alpha-mom hypersensitivity to junk food coming through) chimes in (thank god she did so I didn't have to) to ask whether the candy was really necessary, given all the other candies the girls are handed all day long. Si, si, the girls needed una gratificazione for having completed the lesson. Then how about a sticker? Or a stamp on their hand? And good grief, isn't the dancing itself a gratificazione? I mean, it's not like I am dragging the Bambina on her ass to dance lessons every week. She does actually enjoy the activity.
You would never know that the slow food movement started up in this country. So far, I am convinced that they expect my daughter to be on a diet consisting of candies and maybe the odd plate of pasta once in a while.
7 comments:
What I find strange is that everyone seems to have caramelle on hand at all times. I understand the neighbors' candy dish, but the chauffeur? Does he have a little stash in the car? What about the elderly people at the post? Do they carry caramelle in case they'll run into children?
On a related note, this morning I saw an article online (I forget exactly where) that said that Italy has the highest percentage of overweight children in Europe.
Yes, KC. Believe it or not, the chauffeur has a stash of candies in his car.
It's the same in the US (and teh Phils is even worse)......people's houses, goodie bags, kids' parents, cdoctors' offices, heck out ladies' jars are constantly full of junk that gets offered to my kids constantly. My kids know to ask me first...
Not to mention schools/courses/sports that use M&Ms/stickers as rewards...as we are very much against any type of reward/punishment, it's a PITA for us...but we've learned how to handle it.
Thanks God at the kids' Montessori school there are no such things! (rewards/punishments) Or I'd go nuts.
Ilaria, I am on the same page with you on the Montessori. I find in the States that they are really into rewards as well but the reward is not consistently a candy the way it is here. Often it is a sticker or a stamp on the hand, particularly in upper middle class groups in which the moms are super "alpha".
On the other hand, if the reward is food in the States, it is often worse than just a candy...
Finally I found someone else who thinks this is not appropriate. All my Italian friends think I over react on the candy issue. My daughter is three and attends scuola materna where the teacher hands out candy every single day. The first time it happened my daughter did not eat it but put it in her backpack so that she could show it to me. I was aghast! Ok ok I now know to expect it whenever we step out the door, but at school? Anyway, how do you moms handle it without making your children feel excluded from the other kids?
That would drive me completely mad. We try so hard at home to get kids to eat healthily, so the last thing we need is to be undermined every time we go out. I thought the US was bad, but what you experience sounds much worse.
Germany too! It drives me nuts when we visit the inlaws. The doctor hand out candies for goodness sakes!
I guess though, since the candy is much less sweet in Europe, the harm is less and perhaps the awareness too!
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