It’s totally normal to have hobbies and interests that are completely different to your parents, and vice versa.

But when your hobbies align, it can be really nice to spend that time together, and learn from one another while you go.

And that’s exactly the case for the parent-child relationship in this story, in which both participate in a choir.

But when the adult child tries to give their parent some well-meaning advice, things go downhill.

Read on to find out what happened.

AITA for telling my mom she’s a little pitchy?

My mom (45) and I (21) both sing in a choir together.

Recently our choir director, Natasha (58), promoted the youngest member of the group, Tim (17), to assistant director. This upset a lot of the choir, as most members are 40+ in age.

Last week, Tim came to my mom and I asking if we’d be willing to sing solos in a song he wrote.

Of course we both excitedly agreed as neither of us had an issue with Tim becoming a director.

Let’s see how the solos went.

Today’s rehearsal was Tim’s first day directing on his own without Natasha, and also the first day of the choir working on the song he wrote.

We went over the chorus and backing vocals where everyone sings, and things were running smoothly up until we got to the solo verses.

I sang my verse with no issues for the most part (I was late on my entrance but besides that it was good).

Then we got to my mom. She sang fine except for the fact that on the last word of every line she was flat.

Read on to see how the assistant director tackled this.

Tim stopped her every time she was off and told her to go down just a little bit (she never even got to the second line of the verse).

He even gave her an alternative version where she wouldn’t have to go up to the higher note he initially had written.

Everyone told her if she wasn’t comfortable not to force it, trying to be supportive and stuff because my mom used to be very shy regarding music solos up until a year or so ago, and she still gets a bit nervous holding the microphone.

Anyways, my mom had to leave rehearsal early for a doctor’s appointment, so Tim gave my mom’s part to me and the rest of rehearsal went fine.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

Later on when I get home, my mom was ranting about how rehearsal went saying, “I was doing exactly what you were doing, but whenever I do it I’m wrong”.

So I bit the bullet and told her she was pitchy.

She retorted with, “How am I supposed to sing it right if he’s giving me five different notes?”

Mind you, he gave her two different versions he said she could choose from, not five.

And mom’s ranting didn’t stop there.

She continued, “If I was off-pitch why didn’t he just say that?”, “I know I can sing, I got accepted in a different choir that’s invite only”, and “Whatever, it’s not my solo any more.”

I fully intended on giving her the part back if she ended up learning the right notes.

Anyways, I don’t know I feel bad about it, but was there a better way I could’ve gone about giving her feedback?

AITA?

It’s clear here that this person’s mom was feeling nervous and self-conscious, which probably led to her struggling with the notes and being a bit shaky to begin with.

Honesty is important in these situations, but so is understanding another person’s feelings.

Perhaps if mom’s confidence got a boost, she might be able to hit the right notes.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit had to say about this.

This person thought that this was a clear communication issue.

While others offered some technical advice.

Meanwhile, this Redditor thought the situation called for a listening-ear, not an opinion.

Sure this adult child is clearly trying to be helpful, but it just might not be what their mom needs.

If she was nervous before, she’s surely going to be even more nervous now.

Sometimes it’s best to think about a person’s feelings first; there’s a time and a place for honesty, but this moment might not have been it.

She didn’t need that.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.