Greetings!
Painted Red is the title of the book about growing up in an impoverished medieval town in Italy in the 60’s and 70’s. Through the book I examine my turbulent early years, being raised by a single mom who placed me in a foster home, and the effects it has had on my life. It is a joyous and painful self-revealing journey that I invite you to share with me as you traverse the cobblestone of enchanted Pavia through the moss-laden redwoods forest of Mill Valley in California where I now live with my husband and my daughter.
The Blog portion of this site is dedicated to the women and men who have chosen to compromise their career to raise a family, the women (and men) who long to reach their highest potential and express their creativity in full regardless of their circumstances, and those who experience the transitions of mid-life, including that of our children leaving home. I will write about these topics to help us realize how far we have come and how much is left to do, and to support one another in our endeavors.
I will also address how the Industrial Revolution has changed the way we relate, the birth and the necessity to have more mobile nuclear families (often distant from extended families), and also how high productivity poses a challenge to our ability to maintain balanced lives and raise kids in healthy environments.
Whether we have chosen to stay home and care for our families, or continue with our careers as single or married individuals, all of us have experienced fragmentation and loss of identity as we have moved from one role to the next. As full time mothers and homemakers we have gone unrecognized and at times felt isolated and separated from the rest of society. As professionals with kids we have lived with the guilt of not being more present in their lives and experienced the anxiety of leaving them in the care of others, and that goes for men as well as women. As single and/or married women we have questioned our status and have been subjected to the judgment of a culture that sees women mostly in the context of our gender.
From young professionals, to mothers and fathers, to middle age women, our ability to express our creativity has been challenged by the conflict between who we have become and the results expected of us by a society driven mostly by materialistic pursuit and high productivity. As we grow older we have become savvier, stronger and have gained spiritual insights; yet, as we embark upon the journey of returning to our authentic selves and re-entering society free (or quasi) of domestic obligations, we find that we no longer can accept the paradigm of all or nothing.
My blog will explore the many aspects associated with being a member of the Western society(s), a homemaker and a full time parent in today’s culture, the challenges we face as we contemplate the next step(s), how historical stereotypes have influenced our choices and what we can do to change direction.
Please let me know if you would like me to include your name in a distribution list each time I publish a new blog.
Your input, in the form of comments, will prove invaluable in my quest to answer the questions I pose in my blog.
Thank you so much for your interest and your support,
Lauretta
Lauretta R. Zucchetti, Mill Valley, CA
Blog
My blog is about all the women who have chosen to compromise their career to raise a family, the women who long to reach their highest potential and express their creativity through the integration of the old self with who we have become after years of identity changes and fragmentation. Click Here
Career
As we grow older we change. Through middle age, the children leaving home, and the added knowledge we have acquired, we want a vehicle to express our newfound creativity. To find ‘a spot’ in our fast-paced culture we need to combine who we have become at the deepest core with what’s out there for us. read more
Book
Painted Red is a book I wrote about growing up in an impoverished area of a medieval town in the North of Italy in the '60s and '70s. After my parents split when I turn one, my mother turns me over to an abusive foster family. To escape my daily horrors, I run away at the age of six to my paternal grandparents where I am offered a few years of respite, only to rejoin my mother, who has by then become methamphetamine addicted, a few years later. Painted Red contrasts what people think of Italy today with what it was like to grow up in provincial, narrow-minded towns in Europe at the time.