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

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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?

I couldn't care less when people get up or go to sleep, however I've lost respect for you for using the Karen slur.

I think it's that, in general but not exclusively, most of society functions morning till early evening. All the night owls I know are the ones constantly yawning through work and saying how they aren't morning people, yet stay up till midnight each night, even though they start work at 8am each day.
Obviously that isn't the case with you, but for people that then struggle to get through their working day I don't see why they put themselves through it

Yep, and they top it of with "It's The Best Part Of The Day" and how you've missed it.

of off

@Lweji 6am is usually the very latest he is up, it’s not unknown for him to have got up, gone out for a run with the dog and be home by 6am. He’s an utter weirdo like that.

We're like that here - my husband wakes up early, I don't but then I stay up very late. I like the midnight hour, especially at the moment - no kids awake and just peaceful...

I agree there is a moral dimension to early rising. One of the early repliers said she didn't like lying in bed for too long. That's the problem -some people assume that because you get up later you've stayed in bed longer than the early riser. I went to bed at 3.30am this morning - I was up at 10. That's 6.5 hrs in bed - that is not lazy. Like all the other night owls I much prefer the quiet of late evening / night time. It doesn't just apply to sleeping - trained as a nurse and colleagues would blame 'the night shift' for all sorts and yet as we were all on a day / night rota we were all the same pool of colleagues.
I think the moral dimension goes back further than our change to agriculture. I think the night owls served a highly useful function of guarding the fire and sleepers during the night, when there were wolves, sabre toothed tigers and the like about. I see it as an evolutionary thing - a small percentage of us prefer the night hours and because we helped keep the clan alive, our night owl genes have continued. That's my theory and it belongs to me!!

ps I've had to work very hard during lockdown not to go completely nocturnal. I'm going to bed at 3-3.30am and it 'feels' as if I'm having an early night - weird......

I've always been a night owl as has DD. I can get by on 5 hours and a nap in the day, or I can sleep 8 hours if I get a lie in.
This lockdown has really allowed my natural timings to surface. I stay up till 4 or 5am and then sleep till midday. Two teen daughters do similar, but we are all in our own spaces so it's lovely and quiet and like 'borrowed' time. The birds starting to tweet outside is my reminder to go to bed.
Dh goes to bed at midnight and so it gives us all a bit of time and space. He gets up earlier and has the peace and quiet of the morning to himself.
We're all here all the time right now so it is a good way of getting time to ourselves.
When I'm working in normal times I'm up at 5.45am so it's great to be able to discover my 'natural' timings.

Forgot to say - I think a possible reason for some people's insomnia is that they are going to bed too early for their bodies and then becoming anxious that they can't sleep so they can't sleep. I appreciate there are other causes but I do wonder if this may be a factor

MitziK, that’s so funny

I’m a lark and we are smug buggers, aren’t we. I’ll be honest, I do actually feel it’s somehow morally superior to be an early riser. I wasn’t one so much when I was younger, so perhaps it’s because it feels as if it comes with maturity. I just like the daytime better – although that doesn’t account for why I don’t particularly like the long, light summer evenings. Everyone moans about the dark evenings in winter, but tbh I really don’t care; by the time I get home from work I’m only too happy to draw the curtains – it’s the dark mornings that get to me, although being a 5.30 riser I get up in the dark much more often than not.

My best explanation is (a) that no one really likes getting up whatever the time, so the earlier you do it the more disciplined you seem – and the later, the more you seem as if you’ve just been proscrastinating and (b) if you genuinely are procrastinating by getting up late, it’s quite likely you won’t get as much done in your waking hours. This is assuming that productivity is a desirable goal, I suppose. On the other hand, the quiet, composed quality you’re likely to experience in your mornings if you’re an early riser is also quite gratifying; no one appears at their best when flying around like a headless chicken because they’re late.

It doesn't matter, the people I know who get up that early without kids making them, are usually the anxious type who don't sleep properly. I would LOVE to be you but I'm more like your husband and I find it annoying

Oh I am a night owl who is forced to be a grumpy lark because of early waking small children. I love loafing about in the evenings, having dinner at 8pm, watching some tv, going to bed at 10 and reading for a good hour before sleep. So asleep by about 11/11:30 most nights. I've tried to many times to go to bed earlier but unless I'm absolutely exhausted it just doesn't work and I feel all cross because I don't 'get an evening'.

I would lie in bed given the choice but the the children are up by 5:30am. So often I'm up super early and have become one of those smug twats who goes for a walk (children left at home with DH) at stupid o'clock in the morning just so I get half hours peace at some point in the day.

I must admit, the world is truly lovely first thing when most people are still asleep. See, told you I'd turned into 'one of them!'

I would like to find my natural timing but my OH routine changes by the day and he's still working (thank goodness) because I'm not happy with him and couldn't cope with him around! I've had years of body clock disruption mainly because of noise, although that isn't too much of a problem now, but yes I really don't know given the chance how it would evolve. I guess if I weren't working I'd just go to bed when I want and vice versa. I always used to sleep well at fairly normal times. Really miss sleeping right through! If I've had enough sleep I'm happy to get up early, but usually have to push myself not feeling ready.

I'm glad there are lots of night owls on this thread, makes me feel more 'normal'! I've always been an owl, even as a child I was never up early enough to watch kids morning tv. Left to my own devices I would much prefer to go to bed about 2/3am, and get up about 9.30/10. My dh always comments on how I 'come alive' at about 10/11pm - I do all my best planning/thinking then and could quite happily rearrange cupboards, clean etc until the early hours! Dh on the other hand gets up at 5am, goes for a run and potters about. My dc have already clearly got preferences, 2 ds's who are 9 and 4 are up at 6am and struggle to stay awake past 8.30pm, whereas dd who is 7 is happily up until 10/11 at night, and gets up about 9/10am.

I don't think being an early bird gives you any brownie points in the workplace. If you get in at 8am nobody notices. If you stay until 7pm people do notice.

It can vary. I had a boss once who was a complete lazy arse (one of those who was promoted to get him out of a job he couldn't do competently) and he adopted a routine of coming into the office at 7am and leaving at 3pm. No one was there for almost the first two hours and he never seemed to have done anything, but it made him look like a virtuous lark. Plus he was never around to help with any end of the day tasks that needed finishing.

I'm an owl. DH has larkish tendencies. It works for us mostly. He will get up earlier than me and I deal with dd late at night when she isn't sleeping (autism).
FIL used to do the 'Oh finally' routine if we stayed with him and turn everything off when he went to bed. I was tempted to take the coffee and kettle to bed with me when he came to stay.

You see, this is why lockdown and full time has suited me down to the ground. I'm a night owl - I can drop off at 11 quite easily, but boom! I can be awake at 1am till 4 or 5. Now I can go back to sleep at 5 and wake at 8, fall out of bed and be at work on time.

While I'm awake during the night, I can do stuff, prepare food, fill the washing machine (and set it to go off during the day), mop, etc. As long as I'm not noisy.

@MissBax yet stay up till midnight each night, even though they start work at 8am each day.
Obviously that isn't the case with you, but for people that then struggle to get through their working day I don't see why they put themselves through it

But you see, night owls cannot just go to sleep earlier. By 10-11pm I get an energy boost, when going to bed this early i just toss and turn. For me it is as hard to go to sleep early, as you would find staying up til 3am every day.

I'm an early bird, always have been. I am usually asleep by about 11:00/11:30 p.m., awake by 5:30/6:00. DH is a night owl. His ideal schedule would involve a bedtime of about 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. Fortunately, neither of us have issues with the other one's preferred sleeping habits.

I have noticed some people make the moral claims the OP mentions about early risers. But equally, I have noticed a sort of smug superiority from some night owls, of the "I can't imagine going to bed so early, I'm at my most creative at night," variety, with the clear implication that the early-to-bed-early-to-rise people are utterly mundane and boring.

Oh, and I'm from peasant stock (and quite proud of it).

It has have suddenly remembered reading some research (but can't remember where I read it!) that suggested people pre-industrial revolution used to sleep in two shifts. So you would go to bed fairly early, but then wake in the night and spend a couple of hours doing things and then go back to sleep until dawn. So sort of larks and owls combined?

Activities typically done in the early am (eg, exercise, getting to work early, house work, making a healthy breakfast) are positive ones, while activities associated with staying up late (snacking on junk food, gaming, TV, internet) are less so.

See, I get up at 8 which isn't particularly larkish, given that DH gets up about 6. I also get brought a cup of tea at around 7:30 to drink slowly while I read my ipad and get ready for the day.

I still manage to go for a run, put the washing machine on and empty the dishwasher before I start work (admittedly from home) at around 9:30. I'm not slovenly. I'm efficient.

Activities typically done in the early am (eg, exercise, getting to work early, house work, making a healthy breakfast) are positive ones, while activities associated with staying up late (snacking on junk food, gaming, TV, internet) are less so.

I tried exercising in the morning as everyone said it gives you energy for the day. Nope. Made me even more knackered especially as I had to get up earlier to do it. I exercise in the evening. Also do (quiet) housework late. Am guilty of internet, TV and gaming though (also do those in the morning given the chance).

I am not a natural lark but some of my fondest memories are of staying with my dad on holiday when DS was about 16 months old and he would wake up at about 6am. DH and I took it in turns to take DS out to the beach or the local harbour so as not to disturb my dad's sleep and it was pretty magical having the whole place to ourselves for an early walk. Then buying fresh bread on the way home for breakfast at 9 and feeling like we had done a day's work already! (Usually had a nap later with Ds though).

DS is a teenager now and we have all reverted to being owls.

My SIL loves to post photos on FB of her at a deserted gym for it opening at 6am as if it makes her a better person, she has a half hour drive to get to her special gym too so is up before 5am. She goes to bed at 8.30pm.

I'm a night owl, and lockdown has meant I've slept better than for years.

I normally get up at 6am for work, and leave work at 5pm.

Now, I'm on furlough, and getting up at 11am, after gong to bed around 2-3am. It hasn't changed the amount of stuff I do in the house, I just do them at a later time. I was washing the pots at 1am one night last week.

Mum was the same. Up later, went to work or did stuff round the house during the day, sat with dad in the evening, and when he (a lark) went to bed by 10pm, she'd be up later, doing some chores while watching a film.

I recall my dad once complaing to me she wasn't up when I dropped by one day. To which I pointed out that while she was up later in the morning, she went to bed later and didn't actually sleep more hours than he did. And I also pointed out that they were both retired at that time so did it really matter?

He never complained again about mum having different times to him.