Well it's true.

Dr. Lee's comment reminds me of a class discussion on "The Awakening" and how we concluded that even now the "unforgivable sin" for mothers is to not properly care for their children.

God forbid the poor sleep-deprived women take care of themselves for once.

This is sickening. What about our health? What about our needs?

Four words: "Pint-sized sensory deprivation chambers"

Sometimes the notion of consequences to someone else is what you need to push back.

When you're truly sleep-deprived, you are at greater risk for depression, and when you're depressed -- particularly when you're depressed and sleep-deprived -- you have a hard time arguing for your own needs. Saying "We can't go out because I'm too tired" might start an argument, or you might fear it would even if that's not rational, or you're just not in a headspace to defend your needs. But saying "We can't go out because I'm not safe to drive" is something else.

I freely admit that I am massively sleep deprived, constantly, and that I use my role as the only driver in the family to push back and demand more sleep when I can't manage to do it on the grounds of my own needs. My husband, a great person in many ways, is a selfish ass when it comes to sleep. He can't or won't wake up in the morning until it's time for *him* to go to work, so I get up with the school-age kids and get them out the door. (Even this wouldn't be necessary except one of them has severe ADD, sleep difficulties of his own, and rooms with the two-year-old, so an alarm clock would be more harm than help. It would wake the two-year-old and not the schoolboy.) He doesn't cook unless the moons are aligned just right, and wants my help with it anyway even if he does. He doesn't put any dishes in the dishwasher or even put the food away after dinner. (He *will* slave away at massive home renovations for weeks, so it's not that he does nothing in the home; it's just that he doesn't do the things that need doing every day. So if i'm too tired to do them, they don't get done.) He won't help put the two-year-old to bed. And he wants me to stay up with him on any night that he's too wired to get to bed early. If he offers to let me take a nap in the evening, it's going to be for an hour and a half at most, and I have to fight to get that much, and often it's not as long as he thinks it is because I take the infant with me and she breastfeeds, and if she doesn't fall asleep feeding then she keeps grabbing my face or pinching my breast.

My sleep is apparently totally unimportant to anyone else in the house, and my responsibilities prevent me from just taking the sleep I need. So I refuse to drive if I'm too tired, start talking in monosyllables and grunts, don't fight to focus on what people are saying (the result of which is that I act totally spaced out; I'm not spacing out on purpose, but I *am* purposefully not trying to fight it), and do no housework on days I'm too tired to think straight.

I have attempted to explain that these things are related, but my husband is convinced that all my problems relate to physical inactivity and if I would just go to the gym more often I would have more energy. Which, I think, is kind of like saying that you need to put gas in a car that's out of oil. Yes, the car won't run without gas, but the lack of oil is not only the immediate cause of the not running, it will also destroy the car if it keeps up. So if you have a choice between gas and oil you put in the damn oil first.

What we really need, as a society, is a powerful emphasis on the *need* for sleep. Americans treat sleep as an option and act like you can tough out being tired. And often the attitudes punish night people (the logic "just go to bed earlier" works on the massively sleep deprived no matter how much they are night people, but it doesn't work on the mildly sleep deprived, which is most people.) Schools need to stop having kids get up before dawn -- it makes no sense when most people are not on a manufacturing schedule, but an office or retail schedule -- and adults need to be taught that sleep is a real, serious need.

This is something that bugs me about feministing sometimes- making something out of nothing. I admit that I didn't click on the link, but from what is posted just here on the site, I don't see anything that says that stay-at-home mothers shouldn't care about their own needs or health concerns. All it says is that they may be putting children at risk from driving drowsy, which is true. If you're driving, I'm pretty sure you can determine the level of risk you're putting yourself in, but the children can't.

Also, if someone doesn't know that being sleep deprived is bad for your health, then that's pretty sad. I don't think that's something that can/should be taught in school or elsewhere; it's just common sense.

Damn, Alara. I love your posts, especially the ones about having children, but this one made me shudder. I hope your husband makes it up to you in other ways. ..

I'll go farther than EG. Your husband had better give the best head on the planet, because he doesn't sound like he's worth a damn otherwise.

lazyfatfat: What the study and the article don't address is the WHY of women's sleep deprivation. Instead of calling out mothers for putting their children at risk, perhaps the researchers could have gone further to address the roots of what is causing women to be so sleep deprived. It points fingers (at women) without offering any reasons or solutions to the problem.

I don't think anyone is making a stink around here about something pointless. This is directly related to "women's work" and the lack of support some women receive from family members with regards to chores and other household duties, etc.

I was a stay-at-home mama too. It's very true. My husband would give me shit if I didn't keep the house clean even when I was a student. I remember many nights staying up to clean or do homework and then needing "me" time so bad that I'd read or whatever for a couple hours and go to bed at 2 or 3am, and get back up at 7 to get my kids ready for the day.

I'm now divorced and an out lesbian and I can let my space get as messy as I feel like(which, incidentally, stays pretty damn clean) and I sleep too! It feels good.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it didn't say ALL women should get more sleep because they can put their children at risk, it said STAY-AT-HOME MOMS should get more sleep because they can put their children at risk.

Assuming that a woman who has chosen to stay at home and raise her children that way would be concerned about the danger she could put her children in by not getting enough sleep isn't stereotyping or mysogynist, it's...umm...true.

I concur with Xana, this IS an important issue. 1) There is a popular notion that there are two seperate entities called "working mom" and "stay at home mom", the wording of both would suggest that the one at home does not really "work". If women at home are suffering worse sleep deprivation that those that work outside the home; that is really something, especially given the current 50+ workweek that most people work.
2) I agree with Alara- we don't view our own need for sleep as a valid reason to get some. Maybe it DOES have to be posed in the "it's bad for others" just to get through the patriarchy-induced-martyr mindset. Women have been taught so long to internalize pain, hardship, depression, etc. that when it comes time to recognize our own needs, we are unable to justify anything "just" because "we" need it.

The article really dropped the ball, they could have made the comment that driving sleep deprived is bad for kids, but as Xana said, they should have gotten into the "why"- not just demanded that in order to better serve the children they should get more sleep. Maybe a quick examination of the difference in hours dedicated to housework and childcare vs the hours men spend on work. I just read somewhere (sorry, I wish I could remember where) that a stay at home mom taking care of a toddler works 91 hours (!!!) a week and performs $146,000 worth of services. Duh she's sleep deprived.

Other than beating husbands into submission, and forcing the toilet scrub brush into their hands, I really don't know what could be done for the married-with-children crowd. Strike, maybe?

Mamadyke, I used to be married too- husband didn't help clean, despite the fact that he worked shorter hours, I went to school AND worked MORE than 1 job AND I made at least twice what he made. Now I am single, dating, have a home I clean when I want and if my boyfriend comes over, he cleans AND does laundry!! Dig it. :)

Nazrafel:
Can you tell me how/where "Women have been taught so long to internalize pain, hardship, depression, etc.", because I don't remember ever learning that.

PS- I'm female.

PPS- Xana: I think you can present statistics without having to solve every problem they may suggest. And I'd say the reason stay-at-home moms are so sleep deprived is pretty obvious. Because they don't sleep enough. There's no general solution; it's family specific.

This and the post on Monday about working mothers breeding less all seems to tie in to a pet peeve of mine: that obnoxious social construct that says once you become a mother, you cease to have any personal identity. You are not an individual, you have no needs and desires of your own. You exist only to fulfill the needs and desires of others. If you take time out to satisfy a personal need, even a basic one like sleep, you are selfish, and if anything within the realm of the family goes wrong, it's entirely your fault. Because you are a mother.
Husband cheating on you?
You must not have been keeping him "satisfied" at home.
Your child got hurt?
Why weren't you watching her more closely?
Your teen committed a crime?
You obviously didn't raise him right.

And people wonder why so many women are choosing to pursue careers instead of families?

Sacrifice my identity, my autonomy, and all my dreams and desires, to exist solely for someone else, shoulder the burden of all their needs, and take the blame for all their mistakes? Ooooooh, CAN I?!?

If we want more women to become mothers, and more children being raised in happy, loving families, how about making it worthwhile for women to choose that path?

My husband is the stay at home, full time student dad. So I cant really relate to this, other than I have seen my mother never get a full nights rest, and hardly had a warm bite of food due to "serving" everyone their needs.

While I may be lucky in this regard, I have seen it all too often with co-workers, friends, and other family members.

I have a friend who wakes up, preps the children for school, and then comes to work part time as a teacher aide. Once she finishes her day, she picks the kids up, helps them with her homework, and then begins the process of cooking and cleaning.

This is atrocious, and it isnt fair on any level.

While I do not experience these issues, I would divorce my husband in a minute if he delegated more than half of the responsibilities to me. So I understand it is easier said than done, but still not acceptable.

Alara - my heart goes out to you. I do know I sometimes feel obligated to do more for my husband than I do, since he worked full time to pay my way through school, all the while postponing his education. I dont know if obligation plays a role, but it doesnt seem like he cares much about you and your well being, strictly off of what your saying. I do see this everyday, and it sickens me.

Just to clarify, the intent of my previous comment was not to suggest that having and raising children is not worthwhile or rewarding (if it wasn't, I can't imagine anyone would bother, considering) or to imply that anyone who chooses to become a mother is stupid for doing so. I'm just bashing cultural attitudes that fail to value mothers or treat them as people, and lay the weight of the world on their shoulders.

LazyFatfat, I’m happy you're female and all, but the fact still remains- yes, woman are taught that our pain, our trouble, our issues are marginal and "beside the point". This article is a great example. As Alara and others said, the only reasoning given for women to try to sleep more is that their CHILDREN might suffer. True, yes, but beside the point. Can you imagine articles like “Men Working Long Hours Outside of Home Cause Family Stress� or “Men, Save Your Marriage! Clean a Toilet!� maybe “10 of the Sexist Outfits Men Can Wear to Look Hot for Her!�

The point is, everything women do or experience is analyzed in the context of how it affects OTHER people, not us. When men do things, they are allowed to have personal reasons, private aspirations, dreams, hopes, etc., family is secondary (maybe not to the individual man, but to society at large). No one questions the priorities of a man who takes a promotion that will make him work longer hours, despite the effect on his health, his wife, his children. It is assumed he has already considered these things and has made the logical choice and who are we to question that. It’s his private business. When women do ANYTHING, drink a glass of wine at with friends, go out late one night, work longer hours, work shorter hours, work in the home, do anything unrelated to family- instantly there are questions about the effects, the consequences, the impact on OTHERS. Why is it not enough to say “Because I want/need..�? We are taught that it is selfish to put our needs above others, or even at the same level sometimes. The 2nd wave specifically addressed this issue, the Problem With No Name. For so long, women occupying traditional roles that were supposed to be the pinnacle of female happiness were severally depressed and could not even figure out WHY they were unhappy! The fact that I am having this conversation is testament to how much the 2nd wave accomplished, but I still know many women (mainly 40s and 50s) who still don’t understand why they are unhappy, unfulfilled, frustrated; or even more, KNOW why, but have resigned themselves to their lives because “that’s just how it is�

When women can’t express our needs and wants, or can’t do it without qualifications about how it would help someone else, not “just� us, we have internalized the notion that we do not matter and our issues do not matter.

"PPS- Xana: I think you can present statistics without having to solve every problem they may suggest. And I'd say the reason stay-at-home moms are so sleep deprived is pretty obvious. Because they don't sleep enough. There's no general solution; it's family specific."

I am tired of studies presenting statistics without a disclaimer attached that says: "This is just one study. This is not to be taken as a fact. We have not yet duplicated this study. This is only conjecture."

This is why we had that stupid "Which is healthier: butter or margarine?" debate years ago. People produce a study (don't even get me started on pharmaceutical companies fronting the money for studies that support their own products) and the results get plastered all over the media and yahoo.com's news page and people start to think these studies are actual facts. I don't doubt the intelligence of all individuals to differentiate between conjecture and facts, but this is how stereotypes and misinformation gets perpetuated. All we need is some person walking around saying, "Stay-at-home moms endanger their children by not getting enough sleep! Wont somebody save the children!"

I think many of us can agree that this study is presenting some accurate information as Alara and others have shared their own stories of how much work they do and how little sleep they get. I don't think you can just take all things at face value and claim that you don't need to solve every problem these studies suggest, as in this case I think that mothers, and women in general, NOT getting enough sleep is a problem that needs to be solved.

There is something much deeper at the root of this. We all know the studies that have shown men don't do an equal amount of housework when living with a woman.

This is an equality issue not only a health issue that can be easily solved by going to bed earlier.

Great post Nazrafel!

You know, I know my mother is sleep deprived, and my first thought is not "oh no, she could crash the car and hurt my sister" it's that she could crash the car and hurt HERSELF. She's already had at least two major accidents in the last 6 years and thank god she wasn't hurt badly. But no one else was in the car with her either time. She finally found a job that cuts her commute in half so the situation's gotten better, but my primary concern (even now that I'm at college) is for her.

I remember having a boyfriend in high school who would get a cold and complain to me about how he was dying and it was awful and wasn't he just so tough for getting up and coming to see me when he was soooo sick? So could you make me some soup? And give me a back rub? And when I got sick it was "Oh, god, don't touch me, I don't want to get sick". That person is (thankfully) no longer in my life, but I think that attitude in men is a lot more common than one would hope.

From a pragmatic standpoint, women may be more likely to respond to the idea that they aren't taking their kids if they aren't taking care of themselves. That way, you aren't setting up the situation where the woman feels like it's either her or her kids; now, you're telling moms that their best interests are also in their kid's best interests.

I'm really pragmatic. If it works (and there's a zillion studies out there that show that women, especially SAHMs, aren't motivated to take care of themselves), great.

(As a side note, I've never seen so many Ayn-Rand inspited posts on Feministing - the idea that people exist to satisfy their own goals and pleasures, not those of someone else, and asking someoe to live for another is repulsive.)

My sis-in-law said "I believe it" when she saw the news the other day that said 60% of American women don't get enough sleep. I sent her this link and she will say "I believe this too!" She's a SAHM and she and my bro don't get enough sleep at all.

Oenophile, I'm no big fan of Rand (in fact I think the planet of Objectivists would die out in a generation because from an Objectivist viewpoint there is no good reason to have a child, and certainly no good reason to give any assistance to anyone else who has one), but on a feminist website, you're going to see a lot of support for selfishness because, simply, women (particularly mothers) are under huge pressure to be selfless.

The idea that it is okay to do things because *you* want to, that you don't need to live for the sake of another person, that *you* and your wants and needs are valuable, is narcissistic if you aim it at a class of people who already believe it (such as entitled rich white young men.) If you aim it at a group of people who don't believe it or are under constant attack for trying it, it's a positive message. The idea is to achieve equilibrium -- *all* people should balance their lives between some amount of self-interest and some amount of service to others, but as long as it breaks down in our society that men get massively more slack for self-interest than women do, advocating self-interest to women is a feminist thing to do.

I was going to post a comment to Oenophile, but Alara said EXACTLY was I was thinking, only more clearly. :)

Alara, perfect reply to Oenophile. I hope she's thinking it over. But I'm still shaking my head over your earlier post. Help us Alara-fans hear you:
-- Great, great guy, even if he IS a selfish ass. What's great? He does house renovations sometimes, but there's nothing else mentioned in the post.
-- Three kids, right, including one needing extra care? And he doesn't like to get up in the morning to help see the school-agers out the door. Reason/excuse unstated.
-- His suggestion of how to fit more worktime into the day? Let Alana rev up her engine by going to the gym. Dude, I go to the gym, and lemme tell you, it's MINIMUM 1.5 hours away from the home per session. Alana may be believed when she suggests she doesn't have 1.5 hours a day lying around to spare. Where's that time going to come from?
-- Hubby doesn't drive, either. Why not? If he's disabled, that's another shift of extra work for the wife. If he simply doesn't feel like it, ditto. Maybe too many DUIs?
I'm with UglyinPink: he'd better be giving lots of really good head. Even if so, he still needs to mend his ways.

I think it very likely that not only do WOMEN not get enough sleep, but MEN and CHILDREN in America today don't get enough sleep either.

And call me a Commie if it helps you, but I Blame our Corporate Overlords. "I'll sleep when I'm Dead" is an applauded attitude, and I have seen the workweek explode from 40 hours a week in the 60's to 80 hours a week nowadays in the professions. In Non-professional jobs, they would have to pay you overtime to get that much work out of you, so now many are forced to work TWO jobs, plus deal with family life and the Domestic Front.

Who Benefits from Americans who work 18 hours a day and drag themselves to work and school sick? Well, Big Pharma and Business.

Productivity is up for the last fifteen years, wages are stagnant, and EVERYONE'S exhausted.

I think we are all letting ourselves be abused..and when our health is seriously damaged by lack of sleep and proper nutrition, we are just thrown away.

EVERYONE should make getting 8 hours of restful sleep a priority. Anyone who simply can't because they are the caretakers of infants or small children should get HELP from the REST of us!

I'll bet the reason SAHMs get the least sleep is because they lose track of the hours they work in the home. People who work out of the home also end up working more hours than if they clocked in outside the home.

I was working a long day and unable to respond.

Here goes: Ayn Rand, at one point, said that there is no such thing as sacrifice: a mother who gives up for her children is one who rationally values them above her self and acts accordingly. That is why the true Objectivist philosophy will never die out in a generation. There are a lot of women here who would consider their lives incomplete without children; many men feel the same way. Objectivism does not deny them their children, but rather points out that, if they really want kids, they should have them. If taking care of their kids makes them happy, they should do it.

Objectivism: Act for another when YOU want to, not when society tells you to. Such is the basis of feminism and the eradication of the ridiculous notions that self-sacrifice (the kind that hurts, not the kind that makes your life better) is the basis of Holy Womanhood.

Yeah, objectivism is good for women. I've been saying it for ages, but feminists always shoot me down. All of a sudden, I point out that rational self-interest is what y'all are talking about, and I need to be put in my place. If Alara's comment is aimed that way, it is misplaced.

On a further digression, I've often told people that I have no desire to marry as I have no desire to subvert my self for the happiness of another. A lot of men tell me that it's the greatest feeling in the world. Yeah, it probably is, because they've spent their entire lives living for themselves and not even getting to the part of rational self-interest where humans are loving creatures who take joy in the well-being of others. As a woman who tends to be a bit on the warm fuzzy side anyway, I don't need more of that in my life, but there are a LOT of men who don't even get there until they are 35.

Great post by KMTBerry. :) What's good for women has a really strange way of being good for people. :)

Ahahaha! I just told my sis-in-law who hasn't checked her email yet that SAHMs get the least amount of sleep and she looked straight in my eyes and said, "I believe it!" Do I know her or what? We then told her mother and she said, "I believe it!" We're like three peas in a pod. She didn't agree with the explanation though:

According to the poll, stay-at-home moms top the list of sleepy women. These women report everything, from trouble falling asleep to sleep troubles linked to co-sleeping with an infant of child.

but agreed with my explanation that SAHMs lose track of time in the home. Liberal relatives rule.

I don't normally do this, but since someone asked, and since my first post was really down on my husband, I will go ahead and explain what I get out of this besides good sex. :-)

My husband's legally blind. He can't drive because he can't see well enough. As for positive qualities -- his interests and philosophies of life are mostly very compatible with mine, he's a very loving and affectionate person, he's not just smart but can actually literally learn anything he puts his mind to (for example, he's a computer programmer who's taught himself how to hang drywall, do carpentry and run electrical wire -- I'm equally intelligent but I have a serious block about learning to do this kind of stuff.) He has offered to watch the kids for me so I can go to the gym; the problem is that what I really need is sleep, and while he'll watch them while I take a nap, he'll bitch about it afterwards, whereas he won't bitch about my going to the gym. He's a good and committed father -- he just spent the entire weekend tutoring our oldest son in math because the kid is very smart but has severe ADD, so he has giant holes in his math knowledge. And, um, he has an unusual appearance that perfectly matches my personal fetish. :-) Seriously, I find very few men physically attractive -- I'm emotionally attracted to men, but usually physically attracted more to women -- so finding someone I can love both mentally and physically is rare.