Team Daylight Savings

My friend Annie’s “Team Daylight Savings” status happened to be the first Facebook post I saw today. I laughed at the allusion to the Twilight saga—Team Edward or Team Jacob—and then I scrolled through the rest of my home page, looking for links to interesting articles or videos.

Surprisingly, as I scrolled, I saw status after status berating Daylight Savings Time. Given everything else one could be angry about, the venting struck me very oddly. Never, in my wildest imagination, would I ever think an additional 60 minutes would incite parents whom I hear repeatedly complaining about a lack of time to accomplish the many additional tasks they now have as a result of bringing a child into the world. Nevertheless, friend after friend has posted attacks on daylight savings because those of us without kids get to sleep in an extra hour and they do not.

I don’t recall such an onslaught of bitterness last year, and I can’t fathom why so many people are so mad. Even if your precious little children bound out of bed at the same time they do every day, it seems reasonable that you could convince them to go to bed at their “regular bedtime” that night. I’m not a parent, so perhaps this is a silly concept; however, I recall my parents having a pretty strong authority when it came to turning in for the night.

If you’re concerned your toddler can read clocks, don’t change them until they fall asleep. Cover your cable boxes and keep them from your cell phones. Or, better yet, toss technology aside, take them to the park on this gorgeous day, and play with them, laugh with them, enjoy them for just a little bit longer so they are tired enough to actually fall asleep early. And then, even though you might have had to wait a little longer than the people without children, take solace in the fact that you will also get your extra hour. An extra hour that you, too, will be able to spend in the most fitting manner—tucked into bed, or ticking off a widening list of daily tasks.

The last I checked, time is the very resource none of us can buy, but all of us want. Instead of squandering it with bitterness, why not open your arms and embrace it? On one day a year, we get sixty extra minutes to spend as we choose. So even though my sinus infection is making me feel pretty crummy, these extra 60 minutes are making me feel thankful. I have a huge stack of papers to grade, and that extra hour of sleep cleared my head just enough to make grading them seem possible.