One PED Day, two terrible bowlers, five spectacularly unsuccessful rounds, and an unsolicited Mom TED Talk nobody asked for.
There are days when motherhood teaches you something profound. And then there are days when you throw a bowling ball backwards in front of your child and several complete strangers.
Today was the second kind.
It was a pedagogical day, or PED Day, as we call it here in Montreal, which meant Eliana had no school. Since we had the day together, I thought we could do something fun. Nothing extravagant. Just a little mother-daughter outing.
First stop: the public library.
We needed to renew our library cards. Eliana renewed hers without a problem. I, naturally, had lost mine and had to pay $3 for a replacement.
Three dollars. Not exactly a financial catastrophe, but still an entirely unnecessary expense caused by my inability to keep track of a small rectangular piece of plastic. Very on-brand for a woman who loves spreadsheets and organization.
Anyway, cards renewed, books accessible, civilization restored.
Next stop: bowling.
And that's where the afternoon took a turn. Quite literally, in my case.
The Ball Went the Wrong Way
We've been bowling before, but this time we were playing with the larger pins and bowling balls. Which, as it turns out, makes a difference when neither participant has any particular talent for the sport.
I stepped up for my very first throw. I held the ball. I aimed. I swung.
And somehow, against all reasonable expectations of physics and human coordination, I threw the bowling ball backwards.
Yes. Backwards.
Not into the gutter. Not slightly off-centre. Not a disappointing little roll that barely touched a pin.
The wrong direction entirely.
Everyone saw it, including my daughter. And we laughed.
Because really, what else are you supposed to do when you've just demonstrated that you're a potential safety hazard at a recreational bowling alley?
I would love to tell you that this was an isolated incident and that I immediately recovered my dignity. Unfortunately, the scoreboard had other plans.
Five Rounds. Zero Pins. Two Very Confused Bowlers.
For the first five rounds, neither of us knocked down a single pin.
Not one. Zero.
We weren't even coming close.
The ridiculous part was that our balls would start out rolling straight down the middle of the lane. For a brief, beautiful moment, everything looked promising.
Then, somewhere along the way, the ball would curve dramatically toward the side. And into the gutter it went.
Every. Single. Time.
It was almost impressive. Two people. Five complete rounds. Absolutely no contact with the pins.
At some point, I began wondering whether the bowling balls were actively avoiding them.
We adjusted our positions. We tried aiming differently. We tried to understand what was happening. Nothing.
The balls continued their mysterious journey from the centre of the lane directly into the gutters.
So, naturally, we did what any modern mother-daughter team does when faced with a problem neither one of us knows how to solve.
We opened ChatGPT.
Because apparently, artificial intelligence is now part of recreational sports.
When ChatGPT Became Our Bowling Coach
There we were, standing in a bowling alley, asking ChatGPT how to knock down pins.
Not how to become professional bowlers. Not how to achieve a perfect score. Just how to make the ball travel in the general direction of the objects we were supposed to hit.
The bar was extremely low.
ChatGPT started giving us instructions. How to stand. Where to aim. How to release the ball. What to do if it kept curving toward the side.
I followed the advice. And slowly, something miraculous happened.
My ball started going where I wanted it to go. I began knocking down pins.
Actual pins!
Eventually, I even managed two throws that knocked down all ten. After five rounds of complete failure, this felt like an Olympic achievement.
Unfortunately, Eliana wasn't having the same experience.
She was following the instructions too, but her ball continued heading toward the gutter. She was trying. She was listening. She was making adjustments.
But the results weren't improving the way mine were.
And that's when the afternoon became more complicated.
When the Advice Works for Mom but Not for You
I think part of the problem was the size of the bowling balls. We were using the larger ones this time, and I suspect they were simply more difficult for Eliana to control.
The instructions weren't necessarily wrong. But they weren't producing the same results for both of us.
I was improving. She wasn't.
And I could see her frustration building.
Imagine being ten years old, trying your best at something, following the same advice as your mother, and watching her suddenly start knocking down pins while your ball continues to disappear into the gutter.
I can understand why that would feel unfair. Especially when your mother is the same person who threw her first ball backwards.
Eventually, Eliana started crying.
And that's when I realized that this wasn't really about bowling anymore. It was about trying and not succeeding. About wanting something to work and feeling frustrated when it doesn't. And perhaps about watching someone else improve while you're still struggling.
That's a difficult feeling at any age.
I understood her disappointment. But I also didn't want five rounds of missed pins to ruin what had otherwise been a lovely afternoon together.
So, naturally, I did what any mother with a captive audience and an unlimited supply of unsolicited wisdom would do.
I delivered a TED Talk.
Welcome to My Unsolicited Mom TED Talk
I don't know exactly when a simple conversation turns into a full-blown parenting lecture. But apparently, I have a gift.
One minute you're trying to comfort your child. The next, you're discussing gratitude, resilience, privilege, and global inequalities.
At a bowling alley. On a Monday afternoon.
I reminded Eliana how fortunate she is to live in Canada, to have a loving family, access to education, and opportunities to enjoy days like this.
A day off school. A visit to the library. An afternoon bowling with her mother.
I talked about how not every child in the world has those same opportunities. Some children don't have reliable access to education. Some face challenges far greater than a disappointing afternoon at a bowling alley.
And here we were, having a perfectly lovely day together, allowing a few stubborn bowling pins to steal the joy from it.
Now, before anyone nominates me for the Worst Parenting Speech of 2026, let me explain something.
My intention wasn't to dismiss her disappointment. It was to help her see that two things can be true at the same time.
You can feel frustrated and still recognize that you're having a pretty wonderful day. You can be disappointed in your performance and still enjoy the experience. You can wish you were better at something without allowing that one thing to ruin everything else.
Was my speech a little dramatic for a bowling alley? Absolutely.
Did I perhaps turn a few missed pins into an international seminar on gratitude? Also yes.
Motherhood is a fascinating profession. Nobody gives you a script, yet somehow you always have a speech prepared.
Not Everything Has to Be Something You're Good At
Here's what I really wanted Eliana to understand.
Not everything we try will come naturally to us. Sometimes we're going to be terrible at something. Spectacularly terrible.
Sometimes we'll practise and still struggle. Sometimes somebody else will improve faster than we do. And sometimes we'll make fools of ourselves in public.
That's life.
But today also reminded me of something important: trying hard doesn't guarantee the same results for everyone.
Eliana wasn't necessarily doing anything wrong. She was working with equipment that I suspect was harder for her to control. And no amount of motivational advice could magically make that ball smaller or easier to handle.
That's an important distinction.
Sometimes we need more practice. Sometimes we need a different approach. And sometimes we need equipment that actually fits us.
I think children, and adults, for that matter, can feel enormous pressure to be good at everything.
Good grades. Good sports. Good hobbies. Good performances.
Always improving. Always achieving. Always showing some measurable result.
But when did having fun become something we had to earn by being talented?
Why can't we simply do something because it's enjoyable? Why can't we be beginners? Why can't we be bad at bowling?
I didn't take Eliana bowling because I wanted her to become a champion. I wanted to spend time with her. To laugh. To do something different on a school-free Monday.
The bowling was supposed to be the activity. Not the examination.
And perhaps I needed that reminder just as much as she did.
The Expert Who Threw the Ball Backwards
There is, of course, one small detail that makes my entire motivational speech particularly ridiculous.
The woman delivering this lecture about perspective, resilience, and handling disappointment had thrown a bowling ball backwards earlier that same afternoon.
Backwards. In public. In front of her child. And other people.
I wasn't speaking from a position of sporting excellence. I wasn't some accomplished athlete passing down wisdom acquired through years of dedication and championship victories.
I was a woman who had spent five rounds failing to touch a single bowling pin. And then needed artificial intelligence to explain how to roll a ball in a straight line.
Yet there I was, explaining how to handle failure.
The irony is magnificent.
But maybe that's exactly why the lesson matters.
I didn't need to be good at bowling to have a good time. I could laugh at myself. I could try again. I could improve a little.
And even if I hadn't eventually knocked down all ten pins twice, the afternoon still would have been worth having.
Because the point was never to be good at bowling. The point was to be together.
The Part of Parenting Nobody Prepares You For
I've been thinking about how often motherhood puts us in situations where we're supposed to teach lessons we haven't completely mastered ourselves.
We tell our children to be patient while we're running late. We tell them not to worry so much while we're mentally reviewing tomorrow's to-do list. We encourage them to accept mistakes while privately replaying our own for days.
And we tell them to enjoy the experience, even when the results aren't what they expected.
Sometimes we're better at giving that advice than following it.
But I don't think being a good parent means having every lesson figured out. I think it means being willing to learn alongside our children.
And today, I learned something too.
Just because advice works for one person doesn't mean it will work the same way for someone else.
I could follow ChatGPT's instructions and improve. Eliana could follow the same instructions and still struggle.
That didn't mean she wasn't trying hard enough.
It meant we weren't having the same experience, even though we were standing at the same bowling lane.
And perhaps that was the more important parenting lesson of the afternoon.
I don't know how much of my spontaneous TED Talk Eliana will remember. I don't know whether she'll think about gratitude the next time something doesn't go her way.
And I'm certainly not going to pretend that one afternoon at a bowling alley has magically taught her lifelong resilience.
She's a child. She's allowed to get frustrated.
And I'm a mother. I'm allowed to occasionally turn a recreational activity into a philosophy lecture.
We're both learning.
A Pretty Good Monday, Actually
When I think about today, I don't think the most important part was how many pins we knocked down.
It was that we had a day together.
We went to the library. I paid my ridiculous $3 lost-card tax. We went bowling. I threw a ball backwards.
We spent five rounds failing to touch a single pin. We asked ChatGPT for help. I improved. Eliana struggled.
There were tears. There was an unsolicited motivational speech.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, there was a reminder I think both of us needed.
We don't have to be good at everything. We don't have to turn every activity into an achievement. And we don't always improve at the same speed.
Sometimes, the experience itself is enough.
Maybe gratitude isn't about pretending everything is wonderful all the time. Maybe it's about recognizing the good things even when one small part of the day isn't going the way we'd hoped.
And maybe resilience isn't simply trying harder. Sometimes it's understanding why something is difficult, being willing to try a different approach, and remembering that struggling with one activity doesn't say anything about your worth.
I may not have mastered bowling today, but at least I had the opportunity to teach my daughter two things:
Perspective matters. And you should always check which direction your mother is throwing the ball.
Still caffeinated. Still capable. Still throwing balls backwards. But at least Eliana was there to laugh about it.
Love, Fabi
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