Tricks, bargains, and a 400-year-old finger... How does a mother seek to make her teenage son fall in love with Italy?

One summer evening last year, Jane Bonner met her Italian friend Chiara in Florence, Italy, after years of absence. The two friends walked around the Place de la République, and browsed novels in a bookstore, before they sat down to have dinner in a lively restaurant near the central market, and recalled their memories of the Tuscan city that witnessed their first acquaintance.

But the evening was not without tension; Jane's 13-year-old son, Leo, quickly expressed his boredom with his mother speaking Italian, saying he spent three hours listening to her. This situation was not the first of its kind; It was repeated in the Uffizi Museum, when Leo was in a hurry to leave the place, without paying attention to the masterpieces of the Renaissance and the paintings of Botticelli.

He became even more upset when he learned that the family would visit Rome and Florence again, asking displeasedly: “What? But what really impressed Leo about Italy?”

Jane revealed that her son's interests were limited to Pokemon cards, an expensive Ferrari T-shirt, a museum of optical illusions, the card game "Uno No Mercy", and a luxurious café in the Uffizi Museum. Although Leo is visiting Italy for the third time, his enthusiasm does not match his mother’s attachment to the country, which was an important stop in her life at the university level.

As Jane insists on making her son fall in love with Italy, she realizes, after many attempts, that some compromises are required. Although they often disagreed, her efforts finally began to pay off.

Jane explained that Leo adds a special character to family trips; He is an American boy par excellence, with the same first name as the famous Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, and he dreams of owning a Ferrari one day. Here are the highlights of what Jane learned during her trips to Italy with her son.

A funny situation on the way to the forum. During her first family trip to Italy in 2018, Jane found herself renting a quad bike in the gardens of Villa Borghese in Rome, despite feeling exhausted, after a 10-hour flight. Her son Leo, then 5 years old, was more interested in speed and taking turns than looking at marble statues, which forced her to postpone visits to the Roman Forum and the art museum in the park.

The concessions were repeated during another visit in 2022, when Jane found herself searching around the city for Pokemon cards, after the outdoor dinner began to exhaust her son’s patience. As for the visit to the Roman Forum, it was not completed as planned, as Leo, after feeling tired, insisted on returning to their place of residence.

On the other hand, Leo enjoyed visiting a museum in Florence that preserves the finger of the astronomer Galileo, as he was drawn by the story of his middle finger being separated while his remains were being transported in the eighteenth century. The most famous insults in the Italian language After spending large sums of money on tickets and incomplete meals, Jane decided to organize a simple outing that combined fun and benefit. She arranged lunch with her Florentine friend Cristiano, who offered to teach her son the Italian language.

After exchanging conversations in a restaurant near the Arno River, Cristiano began his lesson with the word “Cornuto,” which describes a husband whose wife is cheating on him, and is considered a cruel insult in Italian culture. Not only that, but he drew in Gene's notebook the hand movement that Italians use to express this word.

Jane said she had always admired the Italian language, but there was nothing like her 13-year-old son learning a word to describe a man whose wife is cheating on him. An Italian holiday for everyone Jane realized that what was fun for five-year-olds might not be so fun for 13-year-olds.

On his first family trip to Italy, Leo was amazed by every landmark he saw, and the photos documented his smile in front of the Vatican’s landmarks and stunning views. Back then, he was happy just accompanying his parents and discovering new places, but it became more difficult to impress him as he got older.

After three trips as a mother, Jane realized that traveling with Leo required giving up some of the cultural experiences she cherished, so that her son could enjoy it in his own way, too. One evening in Florence, Leo refused to stop to listen to an opera singer, but the next day he was excited for a mountain hike when he learned that a dog named Dante would accompany him.

Jane realized that her son, despite being in a country rich in art and history, did not need more than simple pleasures; And a dog to play with, away from the atmosphere of museums and Renaissance art. Moments of pure joy Despite the many concessions, the trips were not without enjoyable moments.

During a trip to southern Italy in 2018, the family stopped at a gas station that included a restaurant, where Jane ate a dish of pasta with oysters, which she described as the most delicious in her life, which caused her son to laugh and be surprised at the same time. In Rome, Leo enjoyed a traditional elevator ride in their rented apartment building, while in Florence, the Fiorentina club shirt he wore was enough to open the garden doors of a luxury hotel in front of him, where the guard received him with great warmth.

Jane expects their future travels will require more compromises, while wondering if Leo will one day master Italian or choose to live in Italy as she did. Currently, Leo only knows the word "cheated husband" in Italian, and has a great passion for collectible Ferraris.

Jane hopes that one day her son will drive a fast Italian car instead of the quad bike he tried in Rome, to take the family on tours through her favorite country, without either mother and son having to make additional concessions.