If your mom or dad is always calling you lazy, point them to this new study that indicates that both laziness and a love of exercise run in the family. Perhaps it’s our genes, after all, that determine how lazy we are—which would explain a lot in my case.

My mother was always sluggish in the morning—to the point where I’d simply watch PBS while she slept, and by the time I was 10 I would just get myself ready and off to school while she was asleep. This was because she was bursting with energy all day and night, cleaning and making flash cards (doctors told her I’d be mentally retarded due to my prematurity and she was determined to not believe it) and cooking and scrubbing. Though I didn’t yet share her keen love of cleanliness (she was adamant that the linoleum never be dirty, especially when us kids were crawling on it), I quickly developed her same night owl schedule and almost manic need to be as productive as possible. (She did later admit to me that much of it was due to diet pills...)

When I was a teenager, I was constantly running my candle at both ends, as my grandmother called it. Between college prep courses, four or five hours of homework a night, working 30 hours (or more) each week, playing softball in the spring and bowling in the winter, caring for my two younger sisters while my parents worked, and about a dozen other extracurricular activities—many of which I held office in—I was one tired kid.  Every time a spare moment presented itself, rather than “play” or party or whatever everyone else was doing, I slept!

My mother started calling me lazy. My naps usually occurred between 5 and 8 PM, if I was home at all—so the rare times that we’d both be home, I was usually sleeping, which led her to believe that was all I did. The laundry, dishes, and fed kids, I always supposed, must’ve been done by fairies. And all that time I was awake all night—either working late or doing homework—must’ve been my imagination.

It wasn’t until after I went to college when she realized all that I did, both at home and at school, and while she never apologized for calling me lazy (and hurting my feelings every time I saw her), she indicated that she understood, that my sisters needed their 8 to 10 hours of sleep (as I routinely reminded her), and of course, that she missed me. I love my mom with all my heart and I know that she loves me, but I wish I’d had this study to point her toward way back then—it would’ve saved me some major resentment and feelings of failure. Or, at least, made me feel a teensy bit better.