Remember when you were a kid and you wanted to be a singer or a movie star, a ballerina or a footballer? All that glitz and glamour, but even better, a life of being paid to do something that you loved. That was the dream, and so when you played and you practiced, you could see – far off in the distance – your name up in lights. You kept that in your heart as you ran toward it, with every kiddy league match or middle school musical another line on your resume as you dreamed of fame and fortune.

Of course, as we grew, many of us turned away from those early dreams. After all, we learned about new professions and we dreamed new dreams. It wasn’t that we lost our ambition, far from it. It’s just that that ambition evolved, and now we knew that teachers and lawyers and climate activists existed, we simply turned our focus to being one of them instead.

The neighbour in this story knows that, and understands that those dreams are all a part of a child developing an identity as they grow up. And they’re aware that even though their pre-teen neighbour can’t sing, that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t practice, nor dream big. But the problem is that her dreams are vastly disrupting the neighbours’ ability to get a good night’s sleep.

Read on to find out more.

A 10 year old neighbour who can’t sing

I have dealt with every neighbor.

The one with the parties 24/7, the one who drills at 4am, the one with the dog barking all night and even the fighting couples.

But NOTHING COULD PREPARE ME FOR HOW BADLY A 10 YEAR OLD GIRL WHO CAN’T SING WOULD HAUNT ME.

Let’s see how bad this situation really was.

I know I sound dramatic, but she practices every day for hours, and it always the same song on repeat over and over.

If she had a pleasant voice, sure, whatever. But she’s singing off key and doesn’t even realize it.

Again, her dream is to be a singer and she practices usually around 9pm-11pm ish. But we have thin walls and I like to sleep early.

And now this neighbour is wondering what they can feasibly (and nicely) do about this.

I want to complain to the parents, but I also don’t want to ruin a 10 year old girl’s dream and be the reason for her not believing in herself.

I know it sounds stupid and like I’m overthinking this, but I’m scared that if I comment on this she would get embarrassed and stop practicing all together, and I don’t wanna be the one crushing her dream cause she really is working so hard for it and going to voice lessons.

Also my husband sleeps like a brick.

Yikes. It really sounds like this singing is bad – and disruptive to a neighbour who really just wants to get some rest!

But kudos to the neighbour for not wanting to be mean to the kid.

Because what’s childhood if not a time to dream and reach for the stars.

Let’s see what the Reddit community said about this.

This person was facing a similar situation.

While others explained how they could complain about the noise without making it about the singing itself.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who finds his parking spot at a hocket game in jeopardy from a rude driver.

Meanwhile, this Redditor thought 11pm was way too late to practice singing.

The truth is that whether the singing was good or bad, 11pm is too late to be practicing it, especially when there are neighbours on the other side of the wall. It’s really great that this young girl has a passion, and hopefully the voice lessons will help too, but honestly, even if it was Olivia Rodrigo living next door, you wouldn’t want her to be practicing at the top of her lungs at 11pm when you were trying to sleep. It would still be exhausting at best.

So when this neighbour delicately speaks to the parents – as they absolutely should – there will be no need to mention the actual talent (or lack of) when it comes to the singing. And lets be real, unless they are totally deluded and fancy themselves as stage parents, they are also aware that their daughter can’t carry a tune. But it’s not about that, it’s about the volume. She can practice at any other time, but not while folk are trying to sleep.