I posted part of this a couple of years ago, but it’s the weekend and I think it bears posting again because when I think of all those exhausted teens being dragged from their beds because some adult thinks that because he’s up, everyone should be up, I get really angry on behalf of the teens.

Mamacita says:   I remember being so tired it wasn’t humanly possible to turn OVER, let alone get up.  But I got up anyway, because I had responsibilities.  I sleep-walked across campus many times, to take a test.  I took tests with migraines so severe there were sparks shooting out of my head and I could barely read the questions.  I took tests that I’d pulled two or three all-nighters in a row to prepare for, and I really believed I was prepared!  I have fallen asleep with my head resting on my completed test.   I never once cut class on a test day, even though there were plenty of times when I wanted to.  (Are you listening, students dear?) (Because midterms aren’t all that far away, you know.)

I think a great way of telling whether a person is an adult or still a kid is watching him/her to see if he/she is, on a regular basis, dragging the ol’ carcass out of bed to do something because he/she signed up to do it, promised people he/she would be there to do it, paid money to do it or is being paid money to do it, and by golly he/she is just SUPPOSED to be there to do it.  No excuses. If it’s an obligation that requires a timeline with an established start and finish point, get up.

That being said:

Unless there is a legitimate reason for a teen to get up on a Saturday or any vacation day, the kid should be allowed to stay in bed all DAY if that’s what he/she wants.  Item:  the possible fact that Mom and/or Dad are up is NOT a legitimate reason to make others get up.

Teenagers really do need far more sleep than even a baby, and they seldom get it.  Many adults don’t understand this, and they insist that a teen GET UP on a Saturday morning or a vacation, because YOU’RE WASTING HALF THE DAY! COME ON, GET UP, THERE ARE CHORES TO BE DONE, ETC ETC ETC and these things can’t be done at nighttime, apparently. . . .  Plus, there’s the absolutely ridiculous early-morning start of high school, which most experts agree is detrimental to most teens’ body clock and yet school systems insist on it, mostly for the convenience of the bus drivers and families who rely on their older kids to babysit the younger kids after school.

Doesn’t anybody care about our sleepy teens?  An average teenager’s body requires ten to fourteen hours of sleep sometimes!  Why won’t some parents let the kid sleep?  Just, you know, leave the kid alone and let him SLEEP?  Wasting the day?  Some people are night owls, plain and simple, and sleeping when they’re the most tired is just logical.  Not everybody loves the early morning.  I don’t.  I hate it, in fact.  “Are you ever going to get out of that bed?  Do you intend to sleep your life away?  Jane, you’re wasting half of your Saturday!”  No, I wasn’t.  My Saturday was divided differently than certain other people, that’s all.  And at nine or ten p.m., when those people were curled up in bed, I was just beginning to be at my mental-alertness peak. I’m still that way.

Teens are wasting good daylight hours when they could be DOING something?  No, they’re not.  Teenagers desperately need that sleep, so leave them alone on their days off and let them sleep. It doesn’t do any good to insist that a kid go to bed earlier, either.  Most of the time, a kid just isn’t sleepy enough to go to bed earlier.  Mother Nature is a wily old thing and wired us all differently, sleep-needs-wise.

So who’s right and who’s wrong?  Nobody and everybody, of course.  But far too many adults can’t fathom a kid who wants to sleep so much.  Nay, a kid who MUST sleep so much.  I understand it completely.  I sympathize. I’m all for leaving the kid alone and letting him sleep.  He needs that sleep.  He needs hours and hours and hours of blissful uninterrupted sleep, far more than adults need.  Leave the kid alone and let him sleep!

Unless, of course, the kid, of his own free will, signed up for a job, or a degree, in which case, the kid needs to be there, #2 pencil in hand, or spiffy uniform donned and ready to fry, right smack when he/she contracted to be there, or else.  Part of becoming an adult is forcing oneself to do things one really doesn’t want to do, simply because it’s the right thing to do.  Many forty-year-olds still haven’t learned this.

HOWEVER, if that’s the case, these kids should have signed up for the midafternoon or evening class, not the morning class.  And since they did sign up for it, they need to honor their commitment. Most of my students have jobs.  That’s good.  All teens should pay for their own car insurance, dates, and fast food with the pals.  But if a kid can get up for fast food with the pals, the kid can get up for class.

Parents, please leave your teens alone on vacation mornings.  Do you really think he/she would have set the iPod and cell phone down and turned his/her back on them unless there was a very, very, very good reason?  Your kids are genuinely tired.  They desperately NEED that sleep.  It’s not laziness.  It’s biology.

Just be grateful it’s the kind of in-bed biology that you don’t have to lose your own sleep over.

So, old people, get up at the asscrack break of dawn if you are wired that way (bizarre) but leave other people alone. It’s a funny thing, but early-rising people always seem to love that time of day so much, they can’t conceive of anyone not being grateful to be awakened to share it.

News flash, morning people: If you don’t get out of here right now and leave me alone, I’m going to have to hurt you. I’m not kidding. The only good sunrise is the one you watch before you hit the sheets.

And I was even worse as a teen.

Sincerely,
–Dracula’s daughter

P.S. If the teen has a real commitment, such as a job or a class, he/she needs a good LOUD alarm clock and some serious consequences falling on his/her head – not from you but from the college or employer – if there’s a question about whether or not to get up to meet that obligation. If you just want the car washed, you can bloody well wait until late afternoon. Sheesh. Go watch the sun rise and eat “breakfast” if it’s that important to you. Leave everybody else alone. LEAVE THEM ALONE. You are not like them, and they are not like you. They’re normal, and you’re a bloody freak.

Well, I feel better now.