LUCCA. Cecilia Lorenzoni spent the day defending herself from the phone calls and giving further explanations after her resignation from the Lucca city council due to the impossibility of reconciling work and family commitments with those of politics, albeit local. He left his seat for the Lucca Futura list in the hall of Palazzo Santini, seat of the municipal councils and triggered a shower of reactions on the web and in newspapers. Because his farewell letter to the council has reopened various fronts on the relationship between women, mothers and politics. «With the end of parental leave and the return to work – wrote Cecilia Lorenzoni, mother of two children, 39 years old, legal advisor to the Ferragamo group – the time available has run out. Without having time and energy, I believe we cannot worthily fill the role of public administrators. For this reason, after a long reflection and after having discussed with my political group, I have resigned as a municipal councilor”.
Chiara Gamberale: “Mum and dad 'transform'. It would be healthier than the word 'separate'”
The day after the farewell letter published by the local newspapers and the wide echo unleashed by his words, he finds the time to explain in great detail the meaning of his message. «I don't take it out on anyone, I don't attack politics, I don't want to trigger sterile controversies – he says vehemently, to make the meaning weigh more -. When I say that our society is not equipped for new needs, that it is increasingly less suitable for working couples who decide to have or adopt children, I mean that many fundamental tools are missing. Let's take educational services, nursery school. For my first son, who is 3 years old, full-time started at the end of October, but my husband and I started working intensively again at the end of the holidays, at the beginning of September. Then full time is until 4.30pm, but everyone works until at least 5.30pm. And that's not my case, because it goes even further. Does this seem like a company that has service times calibrated to the needs of families?”.
At home with mum and dad: 61.5% of under 35s in Piedmont still live with their parents
Chiara Comai
November 26, 2024
There is also room for some political advice. «In the times of Covid, council and commission sessions were held remotely – recalls Cecilia Lorenzoni – and we could go back to doing so for couples with young children. But there are many welfare tools to think about, not only adaptable to politics. It is society as a whole that needs to start thinking about it seriously. Also to counteract the low birth rate, in Italy more than elsewhere, and the compulsive use of grandparents, a fundamental resource for the organization of the family.”
The now former Lucca city councilor Futura recalls precedents of illustrious female politicians who brought their children and even breast-fed in parliamentary chambers. Jacinta Ardem, prime minister of New Zealand, still regretted 'down under', did it in 2018. The Democratic senator from Illinois Tammy Duckworth did so in May of the same year, giving a decisive push to the law in the United States that allowed breastfeeding in the workplace, providing adequate spaces. Labor MP Stella Creasy did it in the House of Commons in Westminster, with her 13-week-old baby. But she received a warning letter from the House administration: “If accompanied by a child, she cannot sit on the bench in the chamber or participate in debates.” In Italy it was the turn of the Five Star MP Gilda Sportiello, in June 2023, to breastfeed her little Federico in Montecitorio. «I also brought my first child – concludes Cecilia Lorenzoni – to the city council in Lucca in 2022, he was only one year old. You can do it once or twice, not for all the sessions.” It would actually be torture for children, after the taste of novelty evaporates.
