Why should teenagers be allowed to sleep in for as long as it suits them?

Dr Paul Kelly, the chap who knows all about teenagers’ circadian rhythms, is still begging the world to let them lie in, and come to school at 11am. He’s tried it at his former school and apparently it worked a treat. Exam results shot up and the general mood was enhanced. Well it would be, wouldn’t it? It is heaven to stay in bed as long as one pleases. We don’t want young persons back toiling up chimneys or in galleys and laundries, but why pander to these rather annoying creatures?

They’re not the only ones who are clapped-out at 8am. I would much prefer to wake up at lunchtime, and Fielding’s circadian rhythms always pressured him to doss until noon, but the world required that we override nature, rise at first light and go to work, along with all the drillion knackered parents, insomniacs and anyone else who stayed up later than was good for them, exerting themselves in all sorts of ways, often in, or glaring at, artificial light, which bedevils their body clocks. Why, out of all of these exhausted millions, should it just be teenagers who are allowed to moulder in bed for as long as it suits them?

Meanwhile, all the rest of us must let the dogs out, milk the cows, open the shops, run the buses, provide the breakfast, keep the world running and teach in the schools that the teenagers can’t be fagged to go to, because the 11-12 years olds are there already (their body-clocks woke them earlier, and even if they didn’t, the parents had to dump them somewhere while they went off to work). In Dr Kelly’s world, they’d be leaving their unsupervised teenagers festering at home. Imagine the anxiety this would cause the parents at work, reducing productivity. If only they too could rise late, work in bright, airy venues, with lovely long tea-breaks and lunch hours, which all researchers know would do them no end of good, but they can’t, because that’s not how the world works. It’s harsh. Which teenagers should perhaps learn at 9am assemblies.