Daylight savings time and my three sons at home: the exception, futile, and outdated
When you raise kids to be smart, you often end up taking all the tests. That鈥檚 what happened last night when I tried to explain daylight saving time (DST) to my youngest son and suddenly found myself in the middle of a heated debate as my teens argued the necessity, effectiveness, linguistics, and the fact that there鈥檚 actually no rule or law making it mandatory.
Gone are the days when my first son thought saving daylight meant putting it in a piggy bank to use as a night light and that 鈥淪pring ahead; Fall back,鈥� was all about jumping on the furniture for half the year.
My son Avery, 14, pointed out 鈥淚t鈥檚 not a law either. Arizona, Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands all leave their clocks alone.鈥�
Then my son Ian, 17, went on a rant about the futility and arrogance of believing we can control the seasons. FYI: Ian hates to get up in the morning and has a room entirely decorated with dozens of clocks of every size and style with their only common thread being that time has permanently stopped for them 鈥� they are all broken. He collects broken clocks as, I think, a protest against being ruled by them.
Quin, 9, with Aspergers has a terrible time cottoning-on to metaphor, analogy, and rhetorical speech so the entire DTS concept is a science-only prospect for him. Explaining to Quin means we forget the cutsie and go straight to Google for history, math, and scientific explanations.
鈥淪o the hour isn鈥檛 actually 鈥榣ost鈥� right,鈥� Quin pressed. 鈥淭he hour鈥檚 there, we鈥檙e just pretending it鈥檚 not the correct time?鈥� We were all forced to agree with this assessment.
Quin read and thought and came back to the raging, argument-filled dining room where his elders were getting all existential on the issues of time and bending reality to social convenience. He held two ringers in the air 鈥� the universal grade school symbol for silence 鈥� and got not quarter. Finally he resorted to our household favorite from the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, knocking 鈥淪have and a haircut鈥� and waiting for his brothers to give in to the impossible urge to sing 鈥淭wo bits!鈥�
鈥淐ome read what I found on the Internet,鈥� he commanded. Here鈥檚 what he found at
鈥淒uring the First World War, Germany instituted a daylight saving program to save power. They ordered everyone to set their clocks ahead by one hour, or one hour ahead of standard Sun time. Doing this made it so that it was light longer into the evening, saving their country energy in the form of electricity. In 1918 the United States began a similar policy. Today, most countries around the world observe Daylight Saving Time. Daylight Saving Time usually begins in April and ends in October in the Northern Hemisphere, after which clocks are set back to standard Sun time.鈥�
Quin looked at us with the look of one who has just solved the riddle of the Sphynx. 鈥淚t was invented to save electricity. So all we need to do is use less during the day and play our Gameboys in the dark at night and Wha-bam! We can skip all this.鈥�
It was about an hour later that he began hinting around that, 鈥淵a know, Mom, there鈥檚 such a thing as an Atomic Clock. I really wouldn鈥檛 mind having one of those so see what time it is inside an atom.鈥�
As Daffy Duck often said to Porky Pig, 鈥淢ore briefing? I think so.鈥�
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On the way to school this morning Quin pointed to the dashboard clock (still unchanged from last year鈥檚 Spring ahead) and matter-o-factly said, 鈥淲ell at least we can stop doing the math on this clock after Sunday.鈥�
I have the feeling that I鈥檓 really not going to miss that hour because it鈥檚 one less that I have to spend explaining the loopy things adults do to a child who has a mind that鈥檚 all logic.
