Miss Morning Grumpiness

I came across this article on ChinaDaily, titled "It's official: Women are grumpier than men in the morning"!

I got a kick out of reading this artice, based on a recent research by The Sleep Council. A woman from The Sleep Council was quoted as saying, "Men know better than to rub their wives the wrong way in the morning and have their heads bitten off, for 6 in 7 women are in a foul mood after waking up", and they stay grumpy longer (up to 4 hours) than men. In contrast, the survey revealed, a quarter of men never wake up in a bad mood. Wow, that's a significant difference!!!

The survey author speculated that women's Morning Grumpiness comes from restless nights caused by stress & worry, and possibly worsened by the fact that women shoulder most of the morning household chores. Twenty-eight percent of women as opposed to only 5 per cent of men do housekeeping before going to work. What do men do? Obviously they only have to get up and go out. Seventeen percent of men surveyed said it only takes them 10 minutes in the morning to get ready. It's a completely different story for women.

You know the morning mad dash... trying to get your kids AND husband ready for school and work, making sure everyone is fed (including the pets) and dressed, and lunches are packed. If you also work outside of your home, you're probably at the bottom of the priority list. So you probably try to put on your makeup, eat breakfast, listen to news, coordinate childcare arrangements (and who knows what else) while driving to work. Oh, I remember those days. I used to drive 1 1/2 hours (one way) to work for 2 years (we lived in MD and I worked in VA) ..... all through my first pregnancy and the first 10 months of my daughter's life.

I'm SO not a morning person, which makes the morning dash even more challenging. In winter months, I had to leave the house while it was still dark outside, and drove home in the dark too. When it snowed, the commute was even more stressful. That was kinda depressing, SO sleep-deprived and not seeing much daylight. Even though I tried to enjoy my commute by listening to tons of audio books, motivational CDs, and my favorite music, if I have a choice, I would never again choose to spend 3 hours of my day on the road, away from my family. The stress alone is not worth it.

Because of my commuting experience, I have so much more patience and compassion for other commuters, and also more cautious while driving around them. After reading this article, I will be even more careful driving in rush hours or dealing with potentialy grumpy women when I go out in the morning.

After all, I wouldn't want to risk messing with Miss Morning Grumpiness. LOL