My cousin who was born around 1950 wrote this when we were talking about growing up Italian on fb:

my cheeks are still black and blue from all the pinching they got from our aunts. never was in their houses more than 10 seconds before some food was put into my hands, even if i just finished a meal. no wonder i was always fat as a kid. was given red wine as a 4 year old and told that it was medicine. my swim suit was called trunks. i was always petrified of getting sick because the first treatment was always an enema. at birthday parties we would pack 35 people into a 9 X 11 kitchen. getting ashes on Ash Wednesday was the most important sacrament. anyone not italian was referred to as amerigan if they were white, if not they were moulignons. most women outside the family were either a gypsy or a putana or a sphacime. whenever a relative saw me as a small child they would say "oh, he's an Alfano." until i was about 12, i thought they were referring to me as some sort of dinasaur. favorite days of the week were wednesday and sunday because that's when we had macaroni for dinner.