Why do kids who have hard time waking up during school days, wake up early during weekends?

My son is in second grade and my daughter is in preschool. They go to different schools and their starting times are different. In order to make it to the school bus, I have to wake my son up, the latest at 6:30 am during school days. It is hard for him to wake up at 6:30 am even though he goes to bed as early as possible. It’s even hard for me to wake up and try to get the grumpy little boy ready for school.

It’s a different story over the weekends though. They wake up and get up at 6:30 am like an atomic clock, every Saturday and Sunday. No matter how late they go the bed. It’s a futile effort to try to convince them, by saying ‘they can sleep as much as they want on weekends’ at bedtime. Fortunately, they are now used to leaving us alone when they wake up, by playing or reading quietly. On the other hand, I am programmed to wake up when I hear them and really have hard time going back to sleep.

Over a coincidental conversation last weekend, I finally learned, from the source, why they wake up really early on Saturdays and Sundays.

Sunday afternoon, my son is ranting about the stuff he hates, while I am trying to get him sit down to cut his hair. I let him vent off. I told him to get everything out of his chest and tell me all the things he hated.

– I hate weekends.
– Whoa, why would you hate weekends?
– Because they’re very short.
– Well, do you like weekdays then?
– No way. I hate having to wake up early on weekdays.
– Good to know. Then why do you wake up early during weekends?
– Because weekends are too short and I don’t want to waste any minute sleeping.
{Insert a hysterical laughter here}
– Mom, this is not a laughing matter (in an even more upset tone).
– Honey, I totally get it. You are right. I am laughing because I didn’t know you thought like this and I was really surprised.

He went on rambling about 10+ other stuff he hated, while I thought how sad it was that he was very logical and right. We actually joked about it – kids waking up early because they don’t want to miss a thing on weekends – many times and apparently we were right and they are right.

I always question why we work 5 days a week and rest 2 days. I can even settle for 4-3. And I am not talking as a mom only. This reality affects both mothers and fathers and therefore kids. We work 5 days a week, so they have to go to school 5 days a week.

You can google “where does 5 day work week come from?”. Obviously there are 6-day work weeks as well (so I should be somehow thankful). Utah has experimented 4-day workweek (10 hrs a day) in 2011, but it was scratched because it didn’t save money as expected. I do not see any move towards that direction from Corporate America anytime soon.

So better wake up early and enjoy those precious 48 hours.