Italy’s Young Adults Opt to Live at Home

Mama’s boys and girls are in no hurry to leave home.

Millions of Italy’s “mammoni” feel no shame and little pressure from peers or parents about lingering well into their late 20s or 30s.

They pay nothing for lodging or the services of clothes washer, maid or cook, i.e., Mama, while they wait for the “perfect job” or the “perfect apartment.”

But with the lifestyle growing more entrenched, Italian businessmen are starting to worry about the economic implications of so many people avoiding adult responsibilities such as jobs.

Sociologists and psychologists debate how such dependency shapes character.

And priests in this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country have taken to the pulpits to urge the cuddled to move out, marry and multiply.

“Are we a nation of ‘mammoni’?” asked a survey recently done for “Cliche,” a weekly program on state TV.

“Si,” said 76% of those polled.

Among reasons most cited for staying at home: a sluggish job market, high big-city rents and parents so permissive they let offsprings’ girlfriends and boyfriends sleep under their roof.

Claudio Procaccia, 31, moved back in with mama after a year living on his own--alone and rent-free in his brother’s apartment in the heart of Rome.

He said he was worn out after long days in university archives, where he is a research assistant while working on a doctorate in economic history. “The idea of making my own bed and cooking my dinner and then ironing my shirt--it took me an hour to do one shirt--just didn’t go down well.”

Procaccia still uses his brother’s apartment to hang out with friends, but eats and sleeps at mother’s, where a live-in servant makes his bed and does his wash.

“I’m very happy, even if he didn’t come back for sentimental reasons,” said his mother, Virginia, 65, after rushing home from caring for a married daughter and two grandchildren, all down with the flu.

Mama Procaccia smiled as she defended her son’s decision. “Children can count on parents, but parents also can count on their children.”

Beppe Severgnini, a social commentator, said Italians “put comfort and quality of life before independence. They lack idealism. . . . They simply don’t see the point in struggling.”

“I’ve never thought about getting out,” said Jacopo Maggio, a 31-year-old architect who lives in his parent’s house in the upper-middle class neighborhood of Montemario in Rome.

“It’s as if this were my own house. . . . My mother only says, ‘Just close the door when you come in late.’ ”

Maggio does his own shirts, cooks, even runs the vacuum--over his mother’s protests.

A report by the Eurispes institute, which keeps tabs on social trends, said that for Italians 25 to 34 years old, roughly one of every two males lives with one or both parents. For females, who are more likely to be asked to help out at home or to marry earlier, it’s one out of three.

The same report noted that the army of stay-at-homes is less likely today to chip in for household expenses. In 1983, 23% contributed something. A decade later, only 9% did.

At the Censis think tank, director Giuseppe Roma said most of the resumes he gets are from people in their 30s seeking their first job. “At 30, they’re already tired. I wouldn’t hire them.”

“Mammismo” poses a “serious problem for our country’s economy,” Roma said. “Not only are young people entering the work world late, they’re entering it badly prepared.”

At a recent conference, business leaders complained about growing reluctance of young people to climb the job ladder from the bottom, Roma said.

Italian young people “are sticking to what’s secure, and what’s more secure than the family?” he said.

Italy’s high jobless rate--roughly 12% nationwide and double that in the south--is often blamed.

But that’s an alibi, Roma argues. “Everyone says they can’t find a job, but what they are really saying is: ‘I’m a college graduate. I don’t want to do just anything.’ ”

Silvia Cossu, 26, said many Italians her age “turn up their noses at what they consider degrading work, like maids.”