In the world of zebra finches, males sing, and females were thought to just listen. But a new study by Daniela Vallentin at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence has overturned this assumption. It turns out that female zebra finches play a far more active and crucial role in shaping their sons‘ singing abilities than previously thought: They call in response to their son’s vocal exercises, which activates a neuronal circuit in the male brain. In this way, the female feedback directly promotes the accuracy of the learned song and highlights the often-overlooked importance of females shaping complex behaviors.