Italy loves children ? (Part 1)

And you thought they were mad about children in Italy? Last night, during an aperitivo at Pachamama, I was given two interesting pieces of information on the subject. Let's start with the one I preferred. A writer/thinker/teacher told me he was in Ireland in the summer. The thing he liked best, he said, was the number of large families on the beach. Couples have three or four kids, he said, compared to Italy, where the average is one child. He said it reminded him of his childhood. It is true. Most of my Irish/English friends have two or three children. Most of my Italian friends have none ... In Sicily, there are on average two children per family. And as soon as they can, they farm them out to the crèche. There is a very high amount of crèches in this town, which is surprising - I thought the grandparents raised the kids in Italy. And it is not just bacause both parents are working. There is a lot of unemployment in Sicily. But they find the money for the crèche.

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