Abolish Daylight Savings

Daylight savings never really impacted my life. An extra hour of sleep in the fall was nice and complaining about losing an hour in the spring was a good topic of conversation, but that was the extent of my daylight savings experience. Well, except for adjusting the clock in my car which always seems to be a challenge and changing the clock on our microwave since the numbers 1 and 8 don’t work meaning that you have to change the clock in the afternoon so that you can select 2 for PM.

Anyway, having a child completely altered my outlook on daylight savings time. On Sunday night, we allowed my nearly one-year old son to stay up until around 8:45 about 20-30 minutes later than his normal bedtime. However, in his mind, the time was really 7:45. Even though he didn’t nap much during the day, he wasn’t ready to go to sleep. We put him in his crib and left the room followed by nearly 15 minutes of hysteria from our usually calm kid. Finally, we returned to his room and rocked him sleep. Fortunately, he seemed to adjust to the time change by Monday night, so I’m sure we’re lucky compared to other parents.

This leads me to the point of this post. Why do we still have daylight savings time? Does it truly save energy? Do the farmers need the change for some reason? Arizona and Hawaii don’t change the time, and although I don’t want to give Arizona credit for any state policies, I think they have it right on this one. Does Arizona and Hawaii use any more or less energy than the other 48 states because of their decision not to participate in daylight savings? Plus, wouldn’t farmers just wake up prior to sunrise regardless of what the alarm clock reads?

I guess that I don't see the purpose of daylight savings time anymore. I just see if as unnecessary. So what will it take to get rid of daylight savings?