Moving to Italy won’t solve your problems
If anything, it will cause more harm than good; not for you, but for Italy
Lately I have had this unsettling feeling of angst. At 31 I thought my life would look a lot different than it is right now. When I moved to Italy as an au pair in January of 2020, I had an open mind, a free spirit and a lust for life and new adventures. Now, I feel guilty writing about my time there & the lessons I learned because I am, in fact, an American who moved abroad. What a privilege that is. I am blessed that I experienced living and breathing Roman culture before the pandemic shook the world, and before Italy became subject to the likes of influencers and content creators. Unlike many online personalities, I hope I gave more than I took. I like to think that I did. I painstakingly tried to blend into the stubborn culture and the rhythm of the city as much as I could. I tried to meld into the ecosystem and as a nanny living in a household with three Italian children, who spoke and understood zero English, I didn’t really have a choice. I think that experience worked out better for me.
However, sometimes I feel as though I missed my big break. I too, moved to Italy amid the pandemic, but I failed to document my life and my everyday occurrences on social media. So how would anyone know they happened? Not to mention when I moved to Italy (pre-pandemic) I was so focused on experiencing the city for myself, I walked everywhere, and saw the city with my own eyes instead of through a screen. The sounds of the espresso machine steaming, and ceramic cups clanging against tiny metal spoons are engraved in my memory, I did not think I would have to take a video of it to prove that I lived it. The nights I spent going around Rome with the The Boyfriend and exploring the city, one wine bar at a time, taking day trips to random towns, and cooking dinner at his tiny apartment are not documented, but those are some of my most influential “Italian moments.” Not including all the of the random outings and routine tasks I did as a nanny. You want to talk about “life in Italy” go to 8-year old’s birthday party or take a coffee at the gym where the kids have swim lessons. That’s real life. I don’t know if a content creator’s video will really encapsule everything that Rome is.
I am blessed I got the chance to discover Rome and experience it without the viral videos and constant influx of ‘Tips and Tricks’, but if I have to watch one more video about the cultural repercussions of ordering a cappuccino after 11am, I might actually delete the app altogether. No one really cares. One of my favorite dates while in Rome included ordering a caffé latte at 4pm to get out of the rain. It’s fine. But I didn’t take a photo of it, so how will the people know?
Maybe my algorithm is set to the constant noise of videos and tutorials about moving to Italy, especially from folks that have lived there for less than a year. It is important to remember that there were women who moved to Italy long before they could monetize their lifestyle on social media. These are the women I would seek advice from. I have a list of them if you are interested but honestly, I would rather respect them and their privacy because it seems like that is not so common these days. Not to mention the countless other women I have met whose stories resonate the most with me because they happened pre-internet, pre-convenience at their fingertips. Context is so important. Now more than ever. Don’t just believe what a video tells you, look up the person that posted it and learn their story, is it rooted in experience or is it following a trend?
I think there needs to be a little bit of struggle, internally and externally. Quitting a high paying, high stress, corporate job in exchange for the slow-paced living of a country that has one of the lowest salary averages in the EU, does not seem appropriate anymore. When I decided to pick up and move my life to Italy, I was working as a server in a restaurant. I was living paycheck to paycheck anyway, but I figured I needed to do something more purposeful with my life than just be surrounded by other service industry people who spent all their money on booze and other coping mechanisms. I took a job as an au pair for the free accomodation and extra pocket money. (Which was less than 300 euros a month, mind you.) A nice night out to dinner with The Boyfriend cost around 40 euros, more if we went out for drinks before and after. Italy, just like life, costs money. I love hearing stories from women that moved to Italy before it was easy to make money from your phone. Teaching English, teaching yoga classes, nannying, babysitting after school, working a grape harvest, being an assistant for a sketchy travel company, these are the stories I respect. I think if you want to move to Italy, you have to be willing to fight for it, or else your time in Italy is just play.
Life in Rome was painstakingly frustrating most days. Yes, I loved the access to great fresh food, and the fact that healthy eating is a common ideal, and the grocery stores do not look like toy stores with everything packaged and in a brightly colored box. Eating whole foods is intrinsically a part of the culture, and food grows abundantly. I enjoyed using public transport, in fact I feel safer taking the bus anywhere in Italy than anywhere in the USA. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t spend two hours or more in transit on the daily. And then there were the random strikes that would occur, causing me to take a taxi from one job to the next. Yeah, remember that $300 monthly salary? It dwindles fast when you have to dish out 20 bucks once a week for a cab because you can’t afford to be late for picking the children up from school. Ironic, right?
“So why didn’t you stay in Italy” I get this question often and the only true answer is, it’s complicated.
My immediate response is “Do you have student loans?” to which they usually respond “No.” and therein lies the root of the problem. It became vividly clear about two years ago that if you have money, or have parents who have money, options are limitless. If you know how to play your cards right, you could easily live off the average Italian salary of 30,000 euros a year1, that is if you are hired by an Italian company, which I know for many fresh expats is not the case. The trend of American’s continuing to work remote for a US based company, being paid in USD (United States Dollar) and move to another country to benefit from the “cheaper living” must stop, but I fear it is only just beginning. Now there are a million and one influencers teaching others how to do it. I am worried because a lot of people recently that have told me they are in the process of getting their dual Italian citizenship. Essentially, if you can prove Italian heritage you can apply for dual citizenship, among other requirements of course. But these requirements have little to do with language competency, or knowledge of the culture. As someone who tried and failed to find employment in Italy and gain proper sponsorship to live and work in Italy, this always triggers me. It is one thing that have family ties to Italy and the purpose of getting dual citizenship is to help family members, refurbish old property-even if the pursuit for citizenship was linked to a search for heritage, I could accept that. But the people I have met not only have zero experience living in Italy, when I ask them simple questions about the language, their knowledge of the customs and social systems, they tell me they have none. One way to learn is to immerse yourself and learn it as you go, (I did it that way), but something about this situation seems unfair to me.
As someone who spent three years trying to understand, learn, respect and immerse into the aforementioned Italian ecosystem, it feels like a slap in the face when I hear that someone gets the chance to move to Italy and gain dual citizenship based on the fact that they can afford the lawyer. It has nothing to do with their experience or education.
Moving to Italy will not solve your problems, and if you have enough money to move there in the first place, you don’t have that many problems to begin with. I am tired of sugar coating my thoughts and feelings to be politically correct. Living in Italy was rough on my body, my soul & spirit. The reality was not what you see on Instagram, do we still have to say that?
I was inspired to write this post because I honestly believe Italy can be a beautiful lesson for many people. It was for me. My time there changed my life, I learned about food, wine, culture, fell in love, had my heart broken, learned another language, among many many other things. I genuinely want other’s (especially women stuck working in restaurants to know they have an option, going abroad and shocking your system is an option. All this to say, if you are wanting to move to Italy, please do so responsibly. Learn about the culture, study the language, learn from people, and ask questions, don’t just watch videos.
No need to feel guilt Tara. Italians voted for a Fascist government and they can fuck right off. Probably people you know, too. Their towns deserve whatever hell influencers bring upon them.