to think getting up early isn't an indication of moral superiority?

[MaryJObliged]

I do get up early most days (between 6 and 6:30am) so I have time to walk the dog and go to the gym before my long commute to work or so I get more time to work when I work from home. But I've never seen this as some kind of positive side to my character or indication of my moral superiority. I just do it because it's practical for my life.

My mother, however, is of the opinion that people who "lounge around" in bed until 7 or 8am are lazy bastards who don't know that they're missing the best time of the day. When she comes to stay on weekends she'll stand at my living room window first thing (say about 8-8:30am) commenting on all the drawn curtains and the lazy buggers asleep when they could be cracking on with accomplishing things.

This is a very odd attitude to me but I've found quite a few people in my life share this perspective. Am I being unreasonable? Or am I, in fact, morally superior because of my early mornings ?

Pre children I'd get up around 6 similar to yourself, dog walking and gym but would usually be tucked up at 10pm so some might call me for early nights

I used to be a night owl but somewhere along the line I turned into a lark.

I always loved the early mornings when no one is around, but now they are the beginning of my day rather than at the end

I don't miss the best telly pyong that's what iplayer, Netflix etc. are for

I agree but my DM wouldn't! You could call at her house at 6.30 in the morning and she would be there, looking immaculate with hair and make up done. She is one of those people who never gets tired though and hates people who takes naps.

I fucking hate mornings.

I wonder what she would make of me, I closed my curtains at 7am and re-opened them at 2pm I was asleep for about 3 hours of that time, the rest of it I was laying there trying to persuade myself that I could drift back off. (Oh and I just went out in my PJs and dressing gown to retrieve mine and my neighbour's bins)

I get up anytime from 8.00 until 10.00 depending on what I need to be up for.
I'm an owl and won't get up unless I have to, but don't sleep until about 3.00am some days.

Tell your mum that she goes to bed far too early and misses the lovely dark nights. it's really lazy bastards who don't stay up.

My friends dh goes to bed every night at 10pm and she goes much later. He just goes up at 10 as a routine. That's just odd for an adult

People always do this. I work until 2 am so if I get up at 11am I've still had the same amount of sleep as the 7am people... but noooo I'm being lazy.
People can fuck off

I thought that getting up early was a sign of old age (or at least middle age) rather than moral superiority. I would love to be able to lie in but can't anymore. Perhaps your mother is jealous.

Except that actually half the time people go to bed at 9pm and wake up at 7 ...that's 10 hours of sleep! Lazy sods

Not generational at all... lol....
My mum thinks she gets up incredibly early at 0730... it's actually usually closer to 0800... but either way... it's not early...
I get up at 0530 (ridiculous, I know) but that's how I manage to fit my day together... and I'm out of the house for work etc by 0700... but that mightn't suit others... My DS8 is used to it and has done it all his life... it's normal for him... my mum thinks it's the middle of the night...

I am lucky that I don't seem to need much sleep so go to bed around midnight and usually get up between 6am and 6.30am. In the winter I sometimes don't wake until later - maybe 7.30.

I know once I am awake I will not be able to go back to sleep and as I personally see sleep as a complete waste of time I am quite happy to get up even if sometimes it will be as early as 5am.

I love early mornings, walking my dog in an often completely empty park or getting on with some housework (not anything noisy) or just sitting in my garden in peace - unlike later on when I will hear music, loud talking, children screeching etc. I expect noise as I live in a built up area but the quietness in the morning often just listening to the birds singing is lovely.

I also love late evenings. Sitting watching tv or dvd's. chatting to OH. I have friends who go to bed around 8 or 9 and, of course, that is their choice but for me that is losing out on so many hours in the evening. We often don't even eat until 8pm.

I don't nap in the afternoons and I very very rarely fall asleep in the evening.

I don't care what others do nor do I feel superior. I am just glad though that OH is like me

I get up at 5:30 in the week to go to the gym and then be at work for 8. It's good because it help so me sleep so much better.

On weekends however I don't set an alarm (if I have no plans) and I love it.

As a teenager my uncle would comment all the time about how lazy I was. He would come over to my parents at 2pm and say have you just got up then? ... even though I'm in my 20s now and have my own home and a job, I still get judged on my teenage years.

My mum thinks nothing of calling our landline at 8am on the weekend. We're usually up with the dog but that's not the point.

She'll always say "Have I woken you up?" when you pick up. It's infuriating because a) she knows that she probably hasn't and b) if there was a slight chance that you thought you might wake someone up you just wouldn't ring at the time would you.

Grr

YOu are not being unreasonable at all!

I get this all the time. I hate getting up in the mornings - even though there's quite a bit of evidence now that we are just made differently - some of us take a long time to wake up, other's don't. Some research even suggested that more intelligent people tended to be more night owls (loved the one!)

My brothers constantly mock the 'can't get up early' part - even though I've actually been getting up early for years because of young children. Doesn't mean that I'm a natural - or that I want to speak to anyone. Except my child of course. Anyone else can go take a moral hike.

I have a friend who is an early bird, she's ridden her horse and walked the dog by 8am on a weekend. My other friend lived next door to her, it drove her mad because they'd get woken up hearing her moving around next door. I seem to be more of a night owl, although I'm long haul cabin crew, so my body clock is long broken. I went on a camping trip with my friend once when I'd just come back from California, that was a challenge! I quite envy how much she can get done in a morning, but then again she falls asleep on a night out if it goes past 10pm.

If I have to I CAN get up early, I have to do it for flights regularly. But people who say they get up at dawn every day baffle me, it's was coming light at 3am when I got up for work this week - how do you not flake out at work in the afternoon?

Is you mum one of those lazy buggers who slopes off to bed early, OP? Or does she burn the candle at both ends, like Margaret Thatcher, who incidentally did not have good health in old age, so no advert for a life spent on a lack of sleep?... My betting is on her being a smug early bird, not a night owl!

I get up very early - between 5.30 and 6.15 and am definitely morally superior to most people

I was wide awake at 4:25am this morning so I got up. I now feel like I want to die.

That's what prompted this thread. When I talked to my mum and told her what time I got up she said "well done"

YANBU

roundabout My mum doesn't really go to bed. She's been sleeping on the sofa for many years. She kind of watches TV and dozes from about 11pm

A mate of mine in the US originally trained to be a nursery school teacher. She hated mornings so much she went back and became a nurse, as they can chose their shifts there for the most part, so she could work exclusively nights or 'swing' shifts (4pm-midnight or such). Just hates mornings. I've got other friends who work nights for the same reason.

'People always do this. I work until 2 am so if I get up at 11am I've still had the same amount of sleep as the 7am people... but noooo I'm being lazy.
People can fuck off'

Exactly!

Well that's not healthy at all.

I attempt to burn the candle at both ends nowadays. I stay up until midnight/1am because that's my natural body clock. And I get woken at 5.55am by my toddler because that's apparently hers

The last few weeks I have been getting up just after 8, and only then because my teens are walking out the door for school. I know that's a tad too much but I know they have breakfast, I clear away the detritus, and their uniforms are washed, ironed and organised in advance.

Urgh - I hear you. My DM's favourite phrase is "got to be up early". To her it's a moral failing to not like mornings and as she can't sleep in she can't empathise with anyone else needing to.

I have worked 12 hour day and night shifts for 15 years where I have to get up at 5am and it hasn't made me love mornings. When I would finish a night shift at 7am my parents would still remark on me "sleeping late" if I was still in bed at 11am, the inference has always been that I am lazy. I always swear one day I would go round their house at 2am and wake them up to go shopping just so they could understand how I felt.

I could never understand why getting up early is seen as superior and staying up later frowned upon. They were always on at me to go to bed earlier so I could "be up early!" As a teenager I defended my night owl tendencies when they said this by arguing that wasn't a quitter by throwing in the towel on the day when there was still time left in it. It seemed as logical to me as saying that I was "wasting the day" by being asleep at 8am.