TOUGH LOVE/TOUGH LUCK

Deadbeat Sons Get the Boot: Mum Says Get the Hell Out of My House

Motherly love can only go so far

Picture this — a 75-year-old woman in northern Italy, a retired mother, separated from her son’s father, and living solely upon her meager pension — had to get the law involved to extract her deadbeat boys, aged 40 and 42, from her home.

The middle-aged men — both employed and fully capable of supporting themselves — fought the verdict to vacate. It was only after a string of previous court decisions challenging Italian law was the mother finally able to successfully and legally extricate herself from them.

They had until December 18 to pack up their belongings and move out of their childhood bedrooms.

You might think — unimaginable! But wait, in Italy parents are obliged to provide financially for their adult children in accordance with the Italian Constitution and sections of the Codice Civile, which is a collection of civil codes and norms regulating private law.

To Americans and citizens of some other Western and European countries, this case may sound bizarre.

In my own case, I couldn’t wait to move out of my family home to live independently and free of my mother’s over protective nosiness. I loved my family but I also craved autonomy and self-sufficiency.

Adult independence is a social/cultural construct

The notion of adult independence varies depending upon the country and its social and cultural norms. Many are quite different from what we experience in the United States.

In Italy, and in some other countries, societal norms lean toward the delaying of self-reliance and life-course transitions. Becoming financially stable tends to occur later in life, and most young adults cannot buy a home without parental assistance.

According to Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, data reported in 2022 revealed Italians tend to leave their parental home at around age thirty.

A recent article in The Guardian reported almost 70% of Italians aged between 18 and 34 currently live at home with their parents, adding that 66% were women and 72.6% were men.

This is in contrast to countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Luxembourg, and Finland, where young adults tend to fly the coop between the average ages of 19 to 22 years. In other European countries such as Greece and Spain, the average age rises to around 26 years.

In the U.S., by age 27, close to 80% of millennials have moved from their parents’ homes.

However, due to a collection of circumstances including the pandemic, an uncertain job market, financial stability, and property affordability more young Americans are remaining at home according to reports from the Pew Research Center.

However, this is not always the ideal choice for many of them. Individualistic aspirations of growing up and striking out on their own as soon as possible was deeply ingrained into Baby Boomers and Gen X’ers, but less so in recent generations.

The notion of American “rugged independence” is at variance with cultures that emphasize maintaining the family unit as a collective responsibility.

Codified into law

Along with the Italian Constitution and Article 337 of the Codice Civile, courts have jurisdiction to establish the extent and in what manner a parent must contribute to the support, care, and education of their children.

Their legal obligation is to raise, maintain and educate their offspring — taking into account their abilities, inclinations and aspirations. Naturally, parents must oblige this commitment in proportion to their means.

Although the expectation that their support isn’t indefinite, sometimes it is.

Adult children over eighteen can demand periodic lump sum payments from their parents if they are, for example, attending an educational institution or training for a trade or vocation. The parents must help pay.

Additionally, parents are expected to provide for their adult children so that they maintain the minimum standard of living they enjoyed during childhood — even when they live separately from their parents.

Parents often attempt to become unyoked from this obligation once their adult children leave home. To do so they must prove they can no longer afford to dish out funds for their continued support.

Courts have far-reaching authority to obtain parents’ financial records, including their assets and income. Whether they can discontinue or reduce monetary obligations rests upon the professional achievement or technical competence attained by the adult child.

Also taken into account is the child’s attempts to find employment, and their personal conduct upon reaching the age of majority.

When laws are abused by “bamboccioni”

Over the years cases have been brought to courts regarding when and how maintenance and provisions should cease for adult children living at home in their late twenties and thirties.

In 2007, Italy’s then finance minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa coined the term “bamboccioni,” meaning big babies. Back then he helped kickstart a campaign to disrupt the tradition of adults living at home long past the age of majority.

Running again for his post of finance minister, Padoa-Schioppa vowed to encourage “those big babies to leave home.” He cited cases of adults remaining with their parents only to take advantage of free accommodation and food.

His campaign didn’t work, and since then the rate of stay-at-home adult children continued to rise.

The 40 and 42-year-old “parasites”

It appears the winds of change are beginning to upset the dynamics of adult children being provided for into perpetuity.

The previously mentioned 75-year-old woman described her sons as “parasites” in court documents. She alleged they’d been living in her apartment without helping with chores or contributing financially, although both were able bodied with jobs.

The Guardian reported she had pleaded with them to learn to live on their own, and create independent lives and households but they had zero interest in doing so.

Presumably, they must have been okay with celibacy because what kind a woman wants to date a 40-year-old who brings her back to mummy’s house?

As a last resort the mother took them to court, where Judge Simona Caterbi issued an eviction order against the men.

The sons hired a lawyer to fight the eviction arguing that Italian parents are legally required to take care of their children as long as necessary.

In her ruling Caterbi stated that while still living in the family home was initially part of their mother’s responsibility they were beyond the age of requiring upkeep and financial assistance.

“There is no provision in the legislation which attributes to the adult child the unconditional right to remain in the home exclusively owned by the parents, against their will and by virtue of the family bond alone.” Judge Caterbi

In 2020, Italy’s Supreme Court also turned down the appeal of a 35-year-old musician, who insisted he couldn’t survive on his annual income and needed his parent’s support.

Nay, nay…the court disagreed, and ruled young adults do not have “an automatic right to parental financial support.”

The court told the musician to “grow up” after hounding his father for five years to give him a monthly allowance.

Failure to launch — Adult Entitled Dependence Syndrome

While reading and studying some fascinating cases of adult children who refuse to leave home — not just in Italy, but in the U.S. and other countries — I came across a condition that might help explain some of the more recalcitrant cases.

If you saw the 2006 comedy “Failure to Launch,” with Matthew McConaughey, you’ll recall he played a 35-year-old who didn’t want to leave his parent’s home because he was too comfortable living there.

Adult Entitled Dependence Syndrome could have been what was plaguing him, as it perfectly describes adults who continue to depend upon their parents in exaggerated ways — even though they have normal development and functioning and no disabilities.

Often these adult kids are resentful, expecting their parents to be their caregivers and perpetual financial providers. They blame others for their misfortunes and show scant appreciation for what their parents do for them.

The problem arises — as it did with the Italian mother — when adult children aren’t autonomous or have the desire to be.

The sad part of this mother’s story — and perhaps sadder for her deadbeat sons — is knowing they’re incapable of solving normal problems by themselves or enjoying a life independent of being coddled.

Final takeaways — what we can learn

The eviction case brought by this mother offers some valuable lessons.

Society is better off when mentally fit individuals learn to navigate life’s ups and downs on their own. When they learn to problem-solve and become productive in all areas of their lives.

If people enter adulthood psychologically ill-equipped to deal with disappointment and everyday responsibilities, they also become incapable of managing life’s inevitable conflicts.

Like the deadbeat sons, they hold unreasonable expectations about their own welfare, looking to others to meet or prioritize their needs.

In the U.S. we’ve witnessed the “helicopter parent” phenomenon. Parents who do too much for their kids, desiring for them an easier and less problem filled life.

Unfortunately, “helicopters” chip away at the coping skills children need in order to grow. Therefore, when they reach maturity they’re often ill-equipped to handle life’s challenges so they resort to the only solution they know: mommy and daddy.

Nature teaches us to find balance between protection and autonomy.

Certain bat species nudge their hatchlings to help them mature. Once they flap their wings in the nest, mama takes them into her beak and drops them so they learn to fly. She swoops down to catch them so they don’t fall to the ground, and eventually they fly off on their own.

That’s what parents should do. Although they need to be available, they also need to recognize everything has limits— even “motherly love.”

The goal of parents is not to protect their kids forever but to teach them so they learn to protect themselves and face life not as a “bamboccioni,” but as functioning adults with their own learned skills and autonomy.

Thank you for your time and attention.