"Why do they come here?" she asked. "What do they get here that they can't get at home?"
"Well," I explained, "America is a very young country. They don't have the millennia of history, the buildings, art, and so on, that you have in Italy. So they like to come and see it here."
"Ah," said Claudia thoughtfully. "You mean they come here because of a lack of culture in their own country?" When the Mom's Away...
I began travelling for work when Rossella was in preschool. Sometimes I went for extended periods, and took her with me; she attended daycare in several different parts of the US, which was good for her English, and gave her exposure to American culture. For shorter trips, she stayed home in Milan with Enrico, who is a very good father and fully competent to take care of his daughter.
The mothers of Ross' preschool classmates weren't convinced of this, however. "I'm off to California for two weeks," I would announce. Collective gasp:"Who will take care of Rossella?"
"She does have a father," I would respond, amused. One of Ross' teachers told me a story to illustrate just how incompetent fathers could be: a father one morning had to get his daughter up and dressed for school. She arrived neat, clean, and nicely dressed in a blouse and skirt. But, to the teachers' shock, lacking underwear. Conversation in a Bar Dec 18, 2001 While having my morning coffee, I overheard a man talking to the waiter: "I married two sisters. No, really. My first wife caught me with her sister. [Meditatively.] "Who do you think is worse: the husband who sleeps with his sister-in-law, or the sister who sleeps with her sister's husband?" ...there's a novel in there somewhere...but probably not the sort I would enjoy writing! |
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