Time to let Italians choose mother’s surname… and shared parenting

FLORENCE, ITALY – The Italian Minister of Equal Opportunities and the Family Elena Bonetti, said it is time for women to be able to give their surname to their children. Bonetti was speaking at a conference marking the 60th anniversary of a high court ruling that opened up Italy’s principal careers to women. Women in Italy generally keep their surnames but children are named after their fathers.

It is a right topic to introduce into the political debate because it focuses on full equality between parents in front of their children. Which is still far from becoming concrete in Italy. Not only for the surname that the child will bear for the rest of his life, but in many other areas, such as the topic of the shared parenting.

After the New York Convention on the Rights of the Child of November 20, 1989, the concept of shared parenting has increasingly spread around the world: a child has the right to have an ongoing relationship with both parents, even if they separate.

Around 15 years later, with law 54/2005, Italy introduced the concept of shared parenting, to guarantee the right of children to maintain balanced and continuous relationships with both parents, even in the presence of separation.

But in reality, after other 15 years, this topic remains mostly theoretical. In Italy, in fact, the courts tend to entrust their children to the mothers, relegating to the fathers only scraps of weekly time (generally, one day a week and alternating weekends). 

It is a mechanism that penalizes fathers, relegating them to the role of workers who have only to pay child support, but also mothers, who are still tied to the old stereotype of the housewife who has to raise children. And above all, it penalizes children who will have to grow up mainly with one parent in case of separation. An increasingly frequent circumstance, considering that only in the last year there have been 150,000 requests for divorce in Italy.

In other countries the situation is quite different. In northern Europe the time spent with children is mostly equal and the child allowance is paid by the spouse with greater economic possibilities, regardless of whether it is the father or the mother; in Finland the times that the courts give the fathers are even longer than those of the mothers, who are more professionally committed. In fact, the countries where most women have career opportunities are also the same countries where shared parenting is at an advanced stage.

Not only Northern Europe has understood that the key to women’s rights is to involve fathers more in raising children. In France, a father can stay at home for 28 weeks when a child is born and the Greek Parliament has just approved a law that establishes equal time with children between mothers and fathers in the event of separation.

According to a OECD (The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) research, gender equality is not only a fundamental human right but a keystone of prosperous, modern economy that provides sustainable, inclusive growth.

In Italy the debate is now focused on the surname to give to children, but it would be useful to start a debate without preconceptions also on how to guarantee full and true shared parenting in front of the children.