Expat Mom in Bologna: Motherhood, Bureaucracy, and Real Life

Motherhood, but make it Italian

I didn’t move to Bologna to become an “expat mom.” That label arrived later, quietly, after I realized how often I was explaining myself, my kids, and my presence. I moved because life shifted. Plans unraveled. The idea of staying where I was felt heavier than leaving everything I knew. Now I’m parenting in a city I love. I’m still figuring out how I fit inside it. I am still learning the language, the rhythms, and the unspoken rules of daily life. This move was part of a larger shift I wrote about earlier in This Isn’t the Life I Planned…

Motherhood doesn’t reset when you cross borders. Obviously. Kids still wake up hungry, tired, and deeply opinionated. They still forget things that were just discussed. They still need you constantly. You’re just doing it in a place where you walk everywhere and the grocery store closes precisely when you realize you forgot the one thing you actually needed. 

Daily life here is slower and more physical. We walk to school, to the store, through streets that feel older than everything I’ve ever known. My kids notice details I would’ve missed. I notice how much mental energy it takes to operate in a second language, even on a good day. Simple errands require focus. Conversations require courage. Some days, by the time we’re home, I feel like I’ve run a marathon without leaving the neighborhood. But let it be known, I do not run. At all. So if I can “feel like I’ve run a marathon” with an exhausted smile on my face, I’m choosing to believe that’s the universe saying: you’ve arrived where you belong.

Italian bureaucracy, however, deserves its own category of endurance sport…maybe a triathlon?

Navigating Italian Bureaucracy as a Parent

Take the Permesso di Soggiorno process. On paper, it’s straightforward. In reality, it’s both simple and completely incomprehensible at the same time. Every form makes sense until it doesn’t. If you Google help for any one page, you’ll find ten different links, all offering slightly different instructions, none of them fully complete.

After compiling all of our paperwork, I went to the post office to submit it, confident I had done everything correctly. After waiting nearly ninety minutes, it was finally my turn, only to be told I needed a stamp I did not have. Naturally, this stamp can’t be purchased at the post office. It must be purchased at a tabaccheria, which sells cigarettes, “brain rot” cards, and apparently essential government documents.

The man at the window spoke no English. I had been in Italy for six days. I was running on espresso, fumes, and adrenaline. We left, bought the stamp, returned to the post office, pulled another number, and waited again. While waiting, I frantically searched whether I was supposed to attach the stamp myself or wait until instructed. I eventually stuck it on, only for my phone service to kick back in and inform me that I absolutely should not have done that yet.

This is Italy: you go here, to go here, to go here, so you can make your appointment back at the first place and hope you didn’t unknowingly disqualify yourself along the way.

Bologna is beautiful in a lived-in way. It’s not trying to impress you. It just exists, confidently, beautifully, whether you understand it or not. That’s been both comforting and disorienting. I’m learning to navigate daily life here while also navigating two kids who are adapting faster than I am. They pick up words and correct my pronunciation. They ask questions I can’t answer yet. Lots of questions. They answer questions I can’t answer yet…the answers are confident but highly questionable. Teaching each of us something I’m 99.9% sure is completely and utterly incorrect. It’s humbling to realize that the people you’re responsible for are often the ones leading you through it…hopefully it’s in the right direction.

Very long-story short, one that needs to elaborated on later – it’s just too good in the confusing, what-in-the-actual-f*ck kind of way – School. Enrolling my kids in school has been, by far, the biggest challenge so far. We arrived on a Wednesday, just days before most schools closed for holiday break. A local school knew we were coming. We were told to arrive at a specific time. We did. The building was completely empty.

What followed was a series of well-meaning adults speaking rapid Italian, contradicting each other in real time, and passing my phone back and forth while trying to locate the English teacher. I stood there jet-lagged, overheated, and deeply unsure of what I was supposed to be doing, nodding along like this was all perfectly normal.

Eventually, we were told we needed to go to a different school first, so that school could tell us where to go next. Weeks later, after tests, phone calls, missed calls, and an endless amount of re-direction, we are still waiting to hear where my kids will ultimately be placed. In the meantime, I’m trying to work, home-school, and keep everyone steady without losing my mind.

I keep reminding myself that this is temporary. Some days, that reminder works better than others.

The Quiet Challenges, the Even Better Rewards

There are funny moments, of course. Ordering something confidently and receiving something entirely different. Nodding along in conversations where I understand just enough to be dangerous. Or, when I was just really craving some Mexican food, so I googled the closest Mexican restaurant and we promptly went. This was obviously a mistake and we have not returned. Or, when a very kind gentleman asked me for directions the other day – this is very exciting because I feel like “OMG, they think I belong!”. The excitement fades almost immediately when you fall into a blank stare without a clue what he just asked or how you should answer.

But there are also quiet, harder moments no one glamorizes. The mental fatigue of operating in a second language. The isolation that creeps in when casual conversations require effort. The strange feeling of being both deeply present in your kids’ lives and while also trying to build a life (i.e. face in computer fully committed to finding ways to make the money we need to live said life). Being “the mom” and “the foreigner” at the same time is a specific kind of loneliness.

Still, there are gifts here I absolutely love – some were expected, some were a pleasant surprise. Slower mornings. Less rushing. More walking. My kids becoming more independent, more observant, more flexible. Me becoming less reactive, less rushed, more willing to let things unfold without forcing them into shape. Bologna hasn’t “fixed” anything, and in all honesty, it wasn’t supposed to “fix” anything. But it has given us space, a new direction in a life that is too short not to take. And right now, space matters. A new direction feels like progress. And the decision makes more sense every day.

I don’t know what this chapter turns into yet. I’m not here with a five-year plan or a polished success story. I’m here, figuring it out in real time. Hoping, praying, to turn this chapter into several chapters. Parenting. Adapting. Learning how to belong without needing to fully arrive all at once.

This is what being an expat mom in Bologna looks like for me.
Not a brochure.
Just life, translated as best I can. 

There will be favorites. Adventures. Lessons. The good, the bad, the ugly. I’ll share them when we get there.