gingicat: Bengal tiger looking peeved (anger/protectiveness - tigerbright)
The Ginger Tiger Cat ([personal profile] gingicat) wrote in [community profile] agonyaunt2021-03-31 12:38 pm

Ask Amy: My mom is inconsiderate and scary

(That's my interpretation of the background of this letter, further down on the page.)

Dear Amy: My mom and I generally have a good relationship, but she does one thing that is really inconsiderate.

I am a light sleeper. I normally wake up around 9 a.m.

My mom is a very active person and insists on exercising every morning before she goes to work.

Because gyms have closed, she has resorted to running on our home treadmill in the mornings. However, since the room with the treadmill she runs on is right beneath my bedroom, her loud running wakes me up from my sleep.

I pointed out that she can run outside or run on the treadmill at other times of the day, but she insists on her current routine.

I asked my dad to talk to her, but he is afraid that she will explode.

I've tried to make compromises by asking her to run only after 8 a.m., but she will not budge, and often runs at 7 a.m.

In response, she screams at me, saying that I am "not the only person who lives in this house."

I am a college student. I need adequate rest to do well in school.

With her disrupting my sleep, I am often tired and unable to focus well on my studies. I feel that it is common decency for people to respect others' sleep.

How can I form an agreement with my mom without me sacrificing my sleep?

— Sleepless


Sleepless: Asking your mother to run at a later time in the morning is not a “compromise” — it is merely you asking her to change. A compromise would be you agreeing to go to bed an hour earlier if she would agree to run an hour later.

Your hard-working mother is trying to take care of herself.

You are responsible for your own health and well-being, and so the most obvious solution would be for you to adjust your sleeping hours, the way you would if you lived next to a construction site where they started jackhammering at 7 a.m.

If you went to bed earlier and started the day feeling rested, you might find that those early-morning hours were among the best of your day.
xenacryst: Opus from Bloom County saying "NO NO..." (Bloom County: Opus NO NO)

[personal profile] xenacryst 2021-03-31 04:49 pm (UTC)(link)
I love how Amy casually slides completely past the "afraid she will explode" and "she screams at me" to suggest that the LW is completely in the wrong here.
azurelunatic: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)

[personal profile] azurelunatic 2021-03-31 07:50 pm (UTC)(link)
I love how advice columns pretty consistently tell people who wake up after a certain time that they should just suck up whatever sleep disruption the early birds decide to shit out.
ellen_fremedon: overlapping pages from Beowulf manuscript, one with a large rubric, on a maroon ground (Default)

[personal profile] ellen_fremedon 2021-03-31 08:27 pm (UTC)(link)
This, and especially right now, when the LW is probably attending most of her classes online--possibly in a different time zone than the one she's living in.

It's never easy and often impossible for people to "just" change the hours of their sleep, but for all we know she has a night class or tutoring session that doesn't let out until 10 or 11 local time.
azurelunatic: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)

[personal profile] azurelunatic 2021-03-31 09:06 pm (UTC)(link)
And if LW is under 20, her biological alarm clock will not have started shifting back to early mornings yet.
ashbet: (Default)

[personal profile] ashbet 2021-04-01 01:17 am (UTC)(link)
Exactly.

Also, as someone with a delayed sleep phase disorder, going to bed 2 hours early is actually really counterproductive, makes it LESS likely that I'll get a full night's sleep due to pain from my chronic illness, and still denies me the crucial morning hours of sleep where I actually get REM.

I know y'all have heard plenty about my narcissistic mother, but would you like to bet who thinks "sleeping late is just laziness," and doesn't respect my schedule in the slightest?

Thankfully, we don't live together, but she'll call or schedule maintenance appointments during my sleep hours, and I can only turn off the phone for one of those!
green_grrl: (Default)

[personal profile] green_grrl 2021-04-01 04:19 am (UTC)(link)
Amy casually slides completely past the "afraid she will explode" and "she screams at me"

Thiiiis. Mom has bullied husband and daughter into not rocking the boat. Unfortunately the answer is basically to graduate, move out, and go low/no contact.
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)

[personal profile] redbird 2021-03-31 04:49 pm (UTC)(link)
"buh wah?" indeed: LW is offering a compromise, between her losing two hours of sleep a night so her mother can exercise early, and the pre-pandemic situation when she was able to sleep until 9 a.m.

I really don't think "please start exercising at eight instead of seven, and I'll go to bed an hour early" rather than "please start exercising at eight instead of seven, so I can have an hour of sleep back" is going to help with someone who screamed at being asked to make a change.
minoanmiss: A detail of the Ladies in Blue fresco (Default)

[personal profile] minoanmiss 2021-03-31 04:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Accurate title is accurate.
conuly: (Default)

[personal profile] conuly 2021-03-31 05:46 pm (UTC)(link)
That one single thing in the middle of a "generally good relationship" is always a killer, isn't it.

"I'm dating a wonderful guy, just perfect, but - teehee! - he's actually Bluebeard! What can I do to make him respect me?"

"My mom is terrific, just the best but - whoops! - she eats babies! I am against baby-eating. How can I encourage her to see my point of view, and stop trying to sneak babies onto my plate?"
colorwheel: six-hued colorwheel (Default)

[personal profile] colorwheel 2021-03-31 06:44 pm (UTC)(link)
"i need a script to make him not-bluebeard"
firecat: damiel from wings of desire tasting blood on his fingers. text "i has a flavor!" (Default)

[personal profile] firecat 2021-04-02 01:46 am (UTC)(link)
Without offending him!
shirou: (cloud)

[personal profile] shirou 2021-03-31 07:42 pm (UTC)(link)
I can see that mom's schedule—exercising before work—may not allow her to run any later than 7 am. It could make her late for work, and she may not have time or energy to run after work. If it weren't for the screaming, I would just suggest LW wear ear plugs. That mom screams instead of listening to LW and calmly describing her own needs is a much bigger problem than the schedule conflict. Ear plugs may get them through this dispute, but there will be more.
cimorene: cartoony drawing of a woman's head in profile giving dubious side-eye (Default)

[personal profile] cimorene 2021-04-01 01:39 pm (UTC)(link)
LOL, how can you look at a letter where a teenager or young adult asks one parent to intercede with a parent who has been "screaming" at them in response to attempting to have a conversation about accomodations, and the other parent refuses out of FEAR OF SETTING THE PARENT OFF, and conclude the parent is probably totally reasonable and the child is just lazy and ungrateful? Fuck Amy honestly.
conuly: (Default)

[personal profile] conuly 2021-04-01 04:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Just noticed this upon re-read:

You are responsible for your own health and well-being, and so the most obvious solution would be for you to adjust your sleeping hours, the way you would if you lived next to a construction site where they started jackhammering at 7 a.m.

If I lived next to this construction site, I'd call 311 and file a noise complaint. What Amy describes is not "suck it up, buttercup", it's actually a violation of city noise ordinances. I've never been in this situation because construction workers don't like to wake up any earlier than I do. My noise complaints are all neighbors, not construction - and quite honestly, if my neighbors were routinely being noisy outside of reasonable hours, I'd go fucking talk to them and tell them to knock it off.
Edited 2021-04-01 16:27 (UTC)
laurajv: Holmes & Watson's car is as cool as Batman's (Default)

[personal profile] laurajv 2021-04-02 04:30 pm (UTC)(link)
where I live, 7am is the normal start of construction hours, in both residential and non-residential areas. You cannot start EARLIER than that, but if there's any kind of infrastructure work, that's when it starts. Maybe it's different where you are, but calling 311 would have absolutely no effect, here: you would be told that's working hours, buttercup.
katiedid717: (Default)

[personal profile] katiedid717 2021-04-05 12:56 am (UTC)(link)
Same here - work starts at 7, which means crews are usually trickling on-site around 6:45