I make my bed because my cats will absolutely shed all their hairs on my side of the bed that one time I forgot to do it. Slightly allergic, so I learned fast lol.

I like to be able to sit or lie on my bed after a long day without it being lumpy.

I had one of those sleep number mattresses once, they have inflatable air bags inside so they zip open and you can get at all the layers of foam too. If you saw how much moisture gets trapped in there you'd do like I do and turn your covers down for the day so everything can dry and air out.

Making your bed all nice and tight just traps a whole lot of moisture.

I had no idea people past my grandmother's generation still felt compelled to make their bed... I thought we had collectively grown past the compulsion to do pointless tasks like this, along with other wastes of time like manually wiping the dishes or ironing everything including the dish cloth. Maybe that's just me, though.

(I'm not talking about doing it if you want to because you like it, only about the expectation that you should be doing it no matter what.)

For me, I like to make it for t o reasons. First, in opposition to your first point, it does make the bed more comfortable. I can skip a day, but any more and the covers are too messed up for me to be comfortable. I don’t sleep like Lenin or Dracula. I’m a side sleeper and I roll around multiple times in the night, but I like the room cold at night, so I like the covers in place.

Second, I learned this from a grand parent I think, and I passed it on to my kids. If it’s the first thing you do in the day you’ve started the day on a good note. You completed something. Admittedly, when I was younger, this didn’t matter to me at all. As I’ve gotten older, it makes a little bit more difference.

How about when you have crumbs all over the bed after snaccing and you need a less itchy place to lie down.

It looks nicer and a nice home that looks cared for is worth it on its own. I find it much easier to relax when things around me are tidy. Not making your bed is no different than leaving everything lying around after you're done using it. If you want to live like that, you do you, no judgement, but I don't.

Right now, I'm lying down on top of my made bed. There are time where lying down is nice, but Id rather not get under the sheets. Maybe I'm old, but resting is different from sleeping.

But if there was someone I trust enough to be in my bedroom, I'm not going to waste my time convincing you that I do not, in fact, sleep in my bed.

This is just a bad faith argument. No one is trying to convince anyone of that they don't sleep in their bed. A fair amount of grooming is performative as is quite a bit of tidying. I, for one, get a sense of calm when I'm tidying things. I don't believe I'm not going to untidy things and I don't live in stress that things need to be tidied. But I'm mindful of it and attend to it when I have a chance.

When I get up from the bed, I may tug on the corner to remove the me sized indentation, but that's it.

I, for one, don't care if you make your bed or not. But I'd have a tough time sharing a bed with someone who doesn't.

Same argument could be made for sweeping/vacuuming the floor or combing your hair. It will just get messy again.

For me making the bed makes things a little nicer and gets me rolling on doing other tasks. First accomplishment of the day and it takes 10 seconds.

Also and maybe more importantly, it will keep dust and spiders and other insects off the sheets I lay on/in. If you've ever got dressed or folded laundry in a sunny room yoh will see how much dust everyday moving around generates. Those dust particles are skin cells (human and animal), bits of fabric, hair, and plastic microparticles since so many clothes are made from plastic.

shameful cleaning ritual is a bit of a harsh descriptor, but hard agree with everything you said.

Firstly, I respect your opinion as I probably shared it in the past.

Secondly, we're obviously talking about making the bed as in after you wake up. Making the bed as in fresh linen is an amazing feeling and absolutely worth while once every few weeks.

Now, to rebut your comments...

1. It makes it more comfortable.

This is a silly reason, and I don't see how it's true.

It does however make bed time feel calmer and more soothing somehow. In my 20s I didn't care about quality sleep because you just bounce back from anything. In my 40s I do think about things like what might contribute to the perfect night's sleep. Having a shower, putting on clean pyjamas, and climbing into a nice bed in a tidy room just kinda sets the scene for a good sleep.

2. it doesn't take much time so you may as well do it

any task not worth my time to be a waste

this is subjective. Your whole argument may as well be "I don't value having a made up bed", which would be fine, but that's not an unpopular opinion so much as a personal preference.

Regardless, you don't "make" the bed the same way you make it when putting on fresh linen. You just flick the covers straight. It takes less time than scratching your ass.

3. It looks nice. And an unmade bed looks lazy

It's kinda weird how often people do see our bedroom TBH. Usually it's someone using the toilet in the en-suite when the other toilet is in use.

4. It's a good example for our kids

There's no way our kids would keep a nice tidy bedroom if we didn't.

Unpopular maybe, but I agree with you.

I leave my bedroom in the morning and don't really come back until I am ready to go to bed. So the appearance doesn't matter to me.

I prefer my bedding to be how I left it, not all flat and tucked in.

My partner disagrees, so the bed is usually made by them because even if I do it it's not up to standards and I get up and leave for work earlier anyways.

But I get it. The only reason I do it is to be nice to my partner, I could give two shits personally.

If I had an efficiency apartment or something I might do things differently because it's like, cluttered in the whole living space, but otherwise I think it's a waste of time unless you're trying to impress someone.

I make the bed to prevent bugs and spiders from crawling into the sheets

I'm with you here. It does look nicer when it's all "setup" but for its purpose, I agree... makes no sense if I'm going to be under the covers anyway. Society plays stupid games and well... you know the rest.

It makes it more comfortable to sleep in.

I have absolutely no idea where that comes from. Do you all sleep like Dracula? My bedding is usually tussled about within minutes of me laying in bed. Blankets balled up for knee support, one leg sticking out for temperature venting. I couldn't imagine sliding under the covers and laying perfectly supine like Vladimir Lenin.

Lol, it's not about "laying perfectly supine", it's about what you are laying on. Yes, you will probably get a couple of small wrinkles by just getting in bed and getting comfortable, but if you never make your bed you will be laying on hundreds of very big wrinkles. To me the comfort level of laying in a made bed and a super messy one is night and day. If you can't tell a difference, consider yourself lucky.

Pro tip: instead of balling up your blankets for knee support, keep an extra pillow on your bed specifically for that purpose. I have an old "king size" pillow I use that supports me from balls to ankles. It has helped my back tremendously.

It's also a pain in the ass if you don't have a lot of space around your bed. My parent's "camp" has a queen bed in basically a cubby and the only way to completely change the sheets to to hunch down on what's basically a side sill for the bed and contort yourself over it to stretch the sheets from corner to corner without having to kneel on the bed for support. I just stopped using a fitted sheet and throw a new top sheet on it once a week or so. works fine. plus its in a cubby so nobody sees the mess.

Back in the days, mattresses were made of straw or other natural materials. Blankets and pillows were stuffed with feathers until recently. And people were not able to heat their bedrooms sufficiently during winter. Back in those days, you had to make your bed in order to air it and dry it from sweat. Otherwise it would start to get moldy really quickly.

Today, synthetic materials and central heating / air conditioning have eliminated the need for a strict humidity management in the bedroom. But it's still stuck in people's heads that making your bed is absolutely vital. I guess it'll take another one or two generations for it to become irrelevant.

Where it is nice is when you want to lie down you don't have to untangle the sheets.

You just lie down and the sheets are perfect.

Also its nice to tuck them in at least partially to make it easier to make.

It is also actually not healthy to make it right after you slept in it.

Most of our daily routines are.

It makes it more comfortable to sleep in.

More comfortable for the cat. She doesn't like it when it's a mess

I like it to look nice and neat. Mess and disorder puts me on edge. I like the bed made with the pillows fluffed and throw pillows placed in a certain way. And I do feel like it's more comfortable to sleep in a bed that has been made, because the pillows are fluffed and all the sheets are smoothed out and evenly distributed between my husband and me. I do just get in bed and turn over, I don't rearrange anything, and instead of a blanket I have my hubby for knee support :)