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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.
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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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"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?"
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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.
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