What if that good boy had been my son?

There is no classification of feminicides and no one wants to do so, but the killing of Giulia Cecchettin it affects me in a different way than others. There’s been a thought in my head for days: «What if that good boy had been my son?». It’s not a journalist’s thought, it’s a mother’s thought when faced with the horror committed by a boy on a girl. I, in this case, am the mother of the male, the mother of the executioner. I asked myself if I really wouldn’t have noticed anything, if I wouldn’t have been able to recognize the situation, to understand what could happen, to limit, to teach.

I’m wondering if I’m doing something wrong. A friend, once, regarding another topic related to my son’s life, told me that just the fact that I was asking myself the doubt was a step in the right direction, a willingness to act. But is it really like that? I’m doing everything I can so that a boy doesn’t get to that point, so that my son (and with him all the boys) is aware of how his actions and attitude can be devastating for the people around him, that he is not at the center of the world, that he owns no one? Is what we do enough?

I can’t give myself a positive answer because many times I seemed to see the good practices that we try to teach at home undermined by the words and attitudes of others, by images and models. Nor am I so convinced that what we do as parents is really sufficient and always correct stereotypes and educational habits always lurking. This femicide showed me more than any other because that boy more than any other appears to me like a son, like those kids I see at school, in the gym, out and about.

Looking at the electronic register at my son’s school I saw that on Saturday the religion teacher spoke about violence against women and that he will do so again next Saturday. My sigh of relief was cut short when I asked myself the same question. Can this be enough?

Saturday afternoon I saw a boy from 22 years old win a very important tennis match for his career and for sport in Italy and my head always went to number 22. That boy is the same age as the one who was killed and the one who killed. Young age is striking even if statistics tell us that 40% of stalking cases concern men between 18 and 35, but we usually believe statistics only when they become news, when it is late. Here I have been asking myself for days what I can do so that it isn’t late and every day I realize more and more that asking this question cannot be enough.