Why is being an early bird seen as somehow morally preferable?

[Wrongdissection]

DH is an early bird, he’s up by 6am latest every single morning, exercising and pottering about before work, catching up on tv, sticking washing in and just general DOING early doors. He regularly falls asleep on the sofa by 8.30pm. Making it to 10pm is an achievement we comment on (unless special occasion and we’re out and about!).

I am not an early bird. I set my alarm for 15 minutes before I’m due to start work (homeworker before all this anyway) and struggle when I have to do it earlier. I do my pottering and exercising after work, I catch up on tv and am usually ready to go to bed between 10 and midnight.

So why does everyone seem to say things like ‘if you went to bed earlier you’d be able to get up earlier’ or ‘you’re tired because you stay up late’ and yet no one ever suggests to DH that he’d be able to stay up later if he stayed in bed longer in the morning? Why is getting up early somehow morally superior and to be aspired to?! We’re awake for pretty much the same amount of hours per day so why is one better than the other?

Completely agree. I work a 9-5 office job. Since WFH I’ve found that I work much better from 11-7. Or even working on a Sunday instead of a Friday. Apparently I’m not allowed to do that! No idea why, I have no contact with customers etc and do solitary tasks.

I’ve recently in the last 18 months stopped doing shift work after 13 years of doing mainly nights. I expect that has framed my view (and also my habits).

Larks annoy me. We have a couple of friends we invite over for dinner. 7pm to eat at 7.30. Fairly normal times right? By 8.30 their eyes are glazing over and they make their excuses to go home to bed because they get up at fucking 5am to 'not waste the day' and are very smug about it. Their work doesn't demand these stupid hours they choose it! They never invite us over as they are usually polishing off dessert by the time the 6 o'clock news starts whereas we are in the midst of the commute

We've stopped inviting them as they are so boring.

I’m an owl. I don’t think there’s any moral superiority in being up early, but there is in making your pattern suit your family.

I’ve seen countless threads on MN where the mum is always up with small DC from 6am while the “owl” dad stays up late and gets up late. Not ok to be an owl every day if your DC are up early. There are fewer scenarios where you’d have to be available for kids in the late evening.

I do feel as though I'm more productive if I get up earlier, but I really struggle with that because no matter what time I get up, I don't get to go to sleep until after 11pm or later.
On Friday night I couldn't sleep at all. Didn't fall over until about 5.45am. 8wm rolls around and bam the next door neighbours have a guy in to move their satellite dish. He was right outside my bedroom window, which would have been fine if he hadn't whistled and sang loudly for the entire time he was there. I felt like walking out and pushing his ladder over.

Thankfully the children are of an age now where they are responsible for themselves and when they weren’t DH did do the lions share in the morning as he was up anyway. Seemed petty to make me get out of bed... but then I did all the middle of the night Getty ups. And DS didn’t sleep for 3 long years 😂

I don't know but it drives me mad! I'm a 3am bed 10-11am wake-up kind of a person naturally, am managing with self employment and lockdown to do that most days and it's lush. But people definitely look down on it even though I do my most creative work after 6pm

Yes I really hate this too, as a night owl who has failed to reset my body clock many times. I've been this way even as a child, I could never get up for all the best early morning Saturday TV even long before puberty set in. OH is more adaptable, when I met him he was more of a night owl, and said he'd always struggled with early mornings and never got used to them when he used to work early shifts. He actually planned his self employed business around being able to start at 10 and work later for that reason. But when he went back to working a job with changing shifts, but mostly early, a couple of years ago, his whole body clock has definitely reset. The whole time he has been working from home during lockdown he has been still getting up earlier and going to bed earlier. Whereas me, without having to go to work or do school runs it's meant my body clock is even more night owl than usual. I can't sleep before 2am and he can't lie in. So either he wasn't really a night owl or your body clock can chance? It is quite lonely of an evening without another night owl partner in crime.

Surely, from hunter gatherer times, we would need night owls and larks, to keep us safe and keep the fire stoked? It makes sense to me that people have different natural circadian rhythms. I actually would go as far as to say forcing people against their natural rhythms really can affect their mental health. It's a fact that people with ADHD (so issues with executive function) have 'delayed sleep phase' and lower dopamine level, so melatonin doesn't kick in until around 4 hours after early birds. Maybe if being a night owl was valued as much as an early riser we'd have a more productive society and less dysfunction.

@jonnybiscuits that was one of the first things I thought of with people that go to bed so early. Must be a bit boring when it comes to socialising.

Next door (who are lovely) get a supermarket delivery at 8am on a Friday morning. Friday is my day off. It wakes me every single week, I once passed comment on it in conversation and lovely neighbour responded along the lines of ‘well you should be up by then anyway’. Why?! I don’t want to sodding well be up by then 🤨

I thought there was some thing I read about early birds being more productive ? Could be wrong there so dont all shoot me! I am normally awake about 6/7 ish ,but cannot stay awake all day. I think surely as long as you get your 8 hours it doesnt matter? As I say I normally nap and then feel able to stay up to 10 .30 /11.00 .Never could stay up late even when younger without feeling totally wiped out!

My owl tendencies worked brilliantly when I lived in London with an amazing social life. Worked 10 to 6. Hour yoga class until 7.30pm. Drinks and dinner with friends at 8. Home after last orders. Bed at 1am. Bliss.

When I arrived at 10am the larks used to scoff about how they had done 3 hours work. Called them out on that bullshit when I arrived at 7.30 one morning ('shit the bed did you?') and they were all sitting about chatting with breakfast and reading the newspaper. No one seemed to do anything until 9am and they all buggered off at 3pm On-The-Dot. anything urgent for that day was left with the later starters and we frequently worked several hours unpaid overtime while the smug early Shirleys barely did their contracted hours.

I think some of it is to do with the fact that humans aren’t nocturnal and light/sun is beneficial to our mood, so if you only get up/leave the house after midday you are missing the most beneficial light.

I’m somewhere in the middle generally and sometimes I go through phases of being a lark, sometimes I go through phases of being an owl. I’ve never felt that one is morally superior to the other though, they’re just different.

JonnyBiscuits Maybe ask them over for Sunday Lunch instead(Mind you they may fall asleep after their pudding LOL!)

Yes I believe user3274826 has it right about someone always being awake to protect the tribe.

What bugs me is people (inc xDSIL and xILs) who get up early for moral reasons (imo) then constantly complain they're tired!

I also find that people project. I can remember my mum laying in bed until midday when I was younger, I was given breakfast and parked in front of the TV and she went back to bed. When my siblings came along she couldn't do that, I was a fairly laid back child and entertained myself, they were not.
She is exceptionally judgy these days though because she's now in the habit of getting up early from those years of having to, and school runs etc. She seems to project some sort of misplaced guilt about her doing it years ago onto everyone around her.

I had a flat mate in my twenties whose father would ring up the landline in our tiny flat at 7am at the weekend as he didn’t approve of lie ins. We were working very long hours in corporate law and partying too. He was subsequently murdered for political reasons and I admit I wasn’t as upset as I should have been. He obviously annoyed other more violent people as well as me.

@MsTSwift oh god that made me laugh! I'm going to hell.

@MsTSwift I did a proper inappropriate snort at that.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz yep that’s what my mum says. Amusing as l get lots done personally and professionally. I can force myself to get up super early e.g. l used to have a job that required me to get a train to work before 6am. At the weekend and during annual leave l revert to type, staying up late and getting up late. The superiority and judgements about night owls is annoying!

I don't know if I feel morally superior to my night owl DH (you'd have to ask him) but I did used to get really frustrated if we had plans to spend Saturday together. I'd be up and dressed by at least 9, he wouldn't get out of bed until 12, then after getting dressed he'd want lunch and it would be early afternoon before we even left the house.

I just don't make plans to do things with him now or I'll say something like we either leave by 10 or I don't want to go especially if it's something where you can't find a parking space later or things start closing at 4.

It's worked well with having a baby though, I can get up the morning with her fine and he often takes over with bath and bedtime in the evening while I have a rest and an early night.

Not rtft but there is a really interesting book called Why We Sleep which talks about this. It was factories that would have a loud bell to wake the village and a loud bell to signal work starting. Latecomers were penalised. Society has developed based on this. Biologically there is no difference healthwise as to when you get your sleep as long as you get the full amount you need. Except teenagers. They need a lot more sleep in the morning and are programmed to be awake late into the night. Early school and college start times are actually detrimental to their health as well as education. It's an eye opening book. No pun intended

I dont know what I am then as I dont function before 9am and I prefer to be in bed by 10pm

I loved a pp’s comment about early birds being from peasant stock. I’m going to use that next time someone tries to shame me for being a night owl.

The early birds in offices are 100% pulling a fast one. The ones I’ve known did bugger all before everyone else got in. I worked in one place where the woman whose job it was to answer the phones and do the post in the afternoons suddenly decided she wanted to work 7.30-2.30. It meant nearly two hours of sitting about reading the paper in the morning because obv the phones weren’t ringing, then other people ended up doing the post because she left before any of it was ready to be processed. She must have had something on the manager to have got away with it.

Earliness in an office settling seems to imply lots of earnest things. 'Look how keen I am!', 'look at my self discipline!', 'work is more important than sleep or family life or my social life!' Much if it is about who sees them in the office at the crack of dawn and lots of keenos do it so they can have a chance to have small talk with a senior partner at the coffee machine in the hoe said partner will promote them simply on the basis they can get up at 5am