Bed in Summer by Robert Louis Stevenson

[conuly]

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

Poem

Today's Calvin and Hobbes

Comments

[acelightning73]

When I was a kid, my family wasn't too rigid about clock time. My father worked the night shift at the airplane factory. I resented having to get up and get ready for school - I would be marked late if I didn't enter the building before 8 AM. So I had to get up at six AM in order to get dressed and walk to school in time. When I saw my dad go to work at 4 PM, come home at 11 PM and eat dinner, I wishe they'd do shifts in school - so I could sleep late and be at school by 4 PM. That way I could wake up, get dressed, eat brunch, and finish last night's homework before I had to hand it in. School would end at 7 or 8 Pm and we'd all go home and eat dinner. Alas, it was considered ridiculous to allow children to get enough sleep before the went to school. It was somehow immoral to stay up late or sleep late. You had to be doing something IMPORTANT, something REQUIRED like school or a job, during every moment of daylight. If you were active after dark, you had to be working for the Devil. And if what you were doing wasn't imposed upon you by the world, what you did was unimportant and you should stop wasting your time doing it (like reading, or watching TV, or playing) and get busy WORKING. My natural circadian rhythm is nocturnal. As an adult, I always chose to work the evening or overnight shift when possible.

[readerjane]

I hear you!

I'm not naturally nocturnal, but I do think it's crazy that schoolchildren (especially teenagers) need to start their days so early. Everyone learns better and functions better with enough sleep.

[acelightning73]

There are school districts in various parts of the US where they have re-structured the school day so teenagers aren't walking to school on the roads before the sun comes up. But I don't know any place where a child can go to school on a schedule that suits their metabolism. (I was so happy to have the choice of first, second, or night shift when I grew up and got a job.)