Postcard from Europe: Machos missing mama

Mammoni. Mamma's boys. Or the more gender-neutral bambocioni - big babies. They're the 60 percent of Italians between 18 and 35, mainly young men, who are still enjoying the comforts of home. Clothing cleaned and pressed. Rent covered. And the call from mama that sets millions of Italian cellphones ringing just before dinner time.

"Sei quasi arrivato? Butto giu la pasta?"

"Are you almost home? Shall I put the pasta in to boil?"

For years, mammoni have been mocked and derided by young foreigners, other Europeans or North Americans who generally leave home about the same time they can legally drink.

Lately, though, mammoni have become the target of Italians. Older Italians, that is. The lastest to publically pummel mammoni is Renato Brunetta, a minister in Silvio Berlusconi's center-right government. Brunetta wants a new law that forces the adolescent layabouts out of the house by the age of 18.

Ridiculous? Yes.

Enforceable? Not.

Likely to pass? Never.

Machismo rationale

But Brunetta doesn't care. It's the point he's making that counts, he said. If young people are pushed out of the house, they'll learn independence, they'll learn about holding down a job... they'll learn how to make their own bed. Brunetta should know. He admits he didn't make his own bed until 30, when he finally left mamma and her housekeeping services.

Megan Williams says Italian politicians are more spoiled than the mammoni

But what he's less keen to admit is the main reason why not-so-young Italians are still at home. In a country where 40-year-olds with law degrees can't find work that pays enough to cover even half the rent and where young people go for years, decades, from contract to contract, how would all those 18-year-olds survive?

Older workers can hardly make enough. Well, not all older workers. Politicians like Brunetta are the best paid in Europe, bringing home more than 12,000 euros or upwards of $17,000 a month. Net.

But don't get me wrong. I'm all for kicking lazy, privileged, perennially adolescent Italian boy-men out of the house. Let's start with the over-crowded Lower House. Then let's move on to the Senate. The most numerous, and ineffective, in Europe.

When Italy's spoiled old men in power pass a law that forces them to grow up, to show some independence and accountability, I'll be only too happy to see a law passed forcing young Italians to do the same.

Until then, any proposals to kick out the kids to me just sounds like just another example of kicking further down.

Author: Megan Williams

Editor: Neil King