In an interesting personal post at Psychology Today, Are You a Morning Lark or a Night Owl?, a Denver psychologist, Shawn T. Smith, shares his experience of trying to negotiate life as a night owl. Not only only is it difficult to run errands, like make it to the bank before it closes, but owls feel judged and misunderstood. After all, they are probably still working after the rest of us have been in a deep sleep for hours. There are a number of posts on the internet by owls about their mistreatment by the rest of us. Traditional school schedules have always been hard on them. A student from Princeton describes the tension.
Besides the snide comments they receive about their slow start to the day, they also experience the effects of sleep deprivation described in the previous post, since to do life in America, there are certain tasks that simply have to be done when the rest of the world is available.
It’s obvious to me now, that I need to apologize to one of my sons. He always bristled when I would say anything about waking up or going to bed at a “decent” hour. His response would be, “there’s no such thing as one time being more “decent” than another! Sorry, Mitch.