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 ?

Who the hell gets out of a nice comfy bed when they don't have to?

Emma- because a new day is exciting. I don't get much pleasure lying around in bed, I want to shower, I want to start my day ( after coffee), I get to the gym early which leaves me energised, I usually have some new project of the go, a list of things I want to achieve. I do relax, but mornings are not the time to do that.
I think my family had an influence, my father had the attitude that chores and work came before relaxation.
He liked to tackle the day head on, so the work and necessary stuff was done in the first part of the day, which left the later part of the day for fun and relaxation.

It's a method that suits me well. I don't insist on it for my own family, my OH and DS are night owls, my DD is like me, loves to be up early and active.

Ilikecheeriosyum Tue 06-Jun-17 23:25:13
"Apparently it IS correlated with your outlook on life, but i definitely does not mean you are lazy,

It seems to directly correlate with sadness,

The sadder you are, the more sleep you need,

Those who find waking up early in the mornings are subconsciously more excited about life!
More likely to be optimistic and less likely to suffer with mental illness."

But why the assumption that night owls are getting more sleep? I get home late and then go to bed late because I have a very interesting job and sometimes can hardly bear having to stop in the evening when something exciting is going on. Life is simply too much fun: I don't want to leave the party. If it wasn't for my family, I'd be thrown from work by security guards in the late evening. When I was doing my PhD I would frequently get carried away and carry on working until the dawn chorus. I miss those days. It's not that I hate mornings- I just love evenings.

Um, what? 7am is normal, early time to wake up, not a lie in!

What time do you go to bed to have enough energy to go the gym at 6am!??

Fuck, if this thread is anything to go by, the only thing more tedious than mornings are some morning people.

In this part of Scotland, at certain times of year, the sun doesn't truly set and it's 'dawn' at around 4am. You'd have to stay up all night to get all this stuff done before dawn.

I've got a dear friend who's a morning person. Her h isn't. When I visit her we make sure to get her drunk so she sleeps till a sane hour.

I go to bed at 23:00/23:30 after feeding 6m DS and get up at 5am. Fortunately I have an hour train commute each way so can relax then and I get to start work at 9:30

Not RTFT but I most often see this attitude in running circles. A run before say 7am is worth soooo much more than one later in the day.

I couldn't run in the morning because I need to drink and eat, and need to leave at least an hour before running, so there's no way I'd ever go out for a run really early, not getting up at 5am to run at 6am!

I get fed up with the smugness surrounding early morning runs.

Otherwise, I actually do get up reasonably early (well, around 7/7.15) and tend to get up at the same time all week with no lie-ins at weekends, so I am a morning person, but I can't imagine why it's considered to be a virtue.

Those who find waking up early in the mornings are subconsciously more excited about life!

Actually, waking early can be a sign of depression.

A PP asked if my mum has always been judgement. Yes, is the short answer to this.

Example: When I was a teenage, we used to walk the dog around a posh park full of weird and wonderful arty people. It was great for people watching but my mum used to say "Shall we go to the park and take the piss out of people?" Then we'd sit on a wall with an ice cream basically commenting negatively on everyone. It was only as I became an adult I realised what a vile horrible and judgmental thing this was to do and to teach your teenage daughter to do.

I may have got a bit ranty on a similar thread a while back where an earlybirs was of the opinion that if nightowls just turned off the TV at 10pm and went to bed (i.e. better sleep habits), they too would be converted to the superiority of choosing to get up at some ungodly hour i.e. sleeping late is a flaw to be fixed.

Exactly. Early risers see it as some kind of flaw and everyone should be like that. My family were all early risers and every day was a battle ground and I was often bodily dragged out of bed even on a Sunday at 7:30am when no one had to be anywhere. I was called lazy.

Early risers do often come across smug and think everyone should be like them.

They are also conscious the day is wasted as my early riser sister is asleep by 9pm every single night without fail. Even in youth she's like that. I have never once shaken her awake or forced her to be up late but she dragged me out of bed on a daily basis even in school holidays as kids and teens.

What about nightlife? 9pm bed time means no going out late at night, no late night movies together, no nothing. When I had a partner who was a fellow night owl: when we met we would be running for the last train home and then talk on the phone until 2-3am. It was so much fun.

Early risers often try and get night owls to fix their sleep habits but I have nothing to fix and I have no desire to be up at 5am and in bed at 9pm.

Complain about the lazy buggers asleep when they could be cracking on with accomplishing things next time you see anybody turning off the lights before midnight. They are wasting the night !

Must admit that when on holiday I drive my DC insane by hauling everyone out of bed at 7 for a 7.30 breakfast. Don't care the rest of the time but hate the idea of wasting time in a new and exciting place laying in bed.

It was great for people watching but my mum used to say "Shall we go to the park and take the piss out of people?"

That's nasty!

I don't get people watching full stop though. My mums one of those and she fixates on people it's so irritating.

I'll never forget once on a birthday meal she did her people watching and kept going on and on about the family on the table next to us. She said things like I am trying to work out if thats the mum or the aunt and who the kids belong to. I finally told her to stop it and pay attention to the birthday she's supposed to be here celebrating.

She gave her default answer of I'm interested in people

So I told her they don't want you to be interested in them and probably wish you'd stop fucking staring at them.

Angelic thats the one exception. I will be up early on holiday without fail to explore. But at home when i dont have to be anywhere I dont force myself up.

I need a lot of sleep. If I'm away from technology and routine physically active (a walking or cycling holiday or skiing) I naturally sleep about ten hours.

In normal life I manage on 8 with a few slightly shorter. I have found the most socially acceptable compromise to be 11-7 (going upstairs at 10). Any earlier and there's no time to wind down after the dinner/bath/bed palaver and any later and we'd all be late for nursery/work.
Getting up with the sun here at this time of year would be 4am and it doesn't go down again till 10pm!

'Those who find waking up early in the mornings are subconsciously more excited about life!'

Hmm, guess all those people who work crucial jobs that keep us all safe and healthy, but involve late nights or hours so they don't wake up early in the mornings are just not excited about life.

'The sadder you are, the more sleep you need'

Bullshit. People need less sleep as they get older. Fuck all to do with sadness.

tiggytape Wed 07-Jun-17 08:32:23

"It's the early risers who get more sleep.
If they go to bed at 10pm and get up at 6am, they've had hours more sleep than nightowls who go to bed at 1am but have to get up for work so only get 6 hours sleep maximum."

Surely that depends on what job you do? As an academic I never start teaching before 9 in the morning, but often not until the afternoon. During the non-teaching parts of the year I can pretty well suit myself. All the night-owls in my family have gone in for similar jobs.

In fact, since I share an office with a colleague, there are all sorts of situations that work much better if one of us is prepared to do some work later in the day. My late evening writing sessions means she can have confidential meetings with students at 10 a.m. without me earwigging.

Plenty of jobs have flexi-time these days. Doesn't necessarily mean the people who do them are lazy.

My natural body clock doesn't let me get up super early

If I have to be up at 5am for a flight I feel sick all day and cannot eat until 10am at the earliest, then don't feel better until I've had a nap and loads of water! I get up at 8am to be on a 9am train to work and that suits me just fine.

How does your mum know that everyone who has their curtains drawn are lazy bastards?

Maybe they've got no kids to look after / do school runs for ans happen to have just finished a nightshift.

I'm up at 4:30am/5am religiously with DS. Curtains are still drawn when I get back from the school run around 9:30/10am so I must be a lazy bastard too.

I tend to stick to what I call hospital hours, which allows me to take medication early enough for them to kick in so I can get on with my day without delay. That's personal to me though. Rising early is better for my health, and allows me to make the most of daylight and darkness for activity and rest respectively.

It doesn't make me better than anyone else, just a better version of myself .

This post made me laugh OP.
There are many people who think like your mum. Personally, I think our body clocks are all different.
And while the norm round here is that most neighbours are up and out commuting, school runs etc. There are undoubtedly many who have differing hours of work, and a conventional 6am rise would not be remotely recommended!
Live & let lay I say!

FreeNiki Yep, it's horrible. I was only 13-14 so I didn't really recognise how awful it was. Plus, I'd grown up in a very judgmental house so it seemed like a natural extension of that.

This park was always full of completely crazy people who were (still are) really interesting to watch. The man we saw once on a unicycle wearing noting but a loincloth springs to mind! But there was no need to judge. Like your mum she'd also fixate on people/families trying to work out family dynamics or how old people were. Does it really matter?!

This thread has me bang to rights because I thought I was a morning person and consequently morally superior but I only get up at 7 and therefore a lazy slattern according to the OP's mum. To get true lark superiority I need to be up at 5 and that's not going to happen so I'll have to settle for being a delusional and quite lazy lark.