Daylight saving worth the sacrifice

Ihated daylight saving when I was young. It meant earlier bedtimes during the school week and was most argumentative about it. I resented having to go to bed while the sun was still out, the birds were singing and the other kids in the neighbourhood were out tearing around.

I remember indignantly yanking the curtains open in my room while my mother was trying to put me to bed — trying to show her the world still going on outside my window. I just couldn’t understand it. In reality, my bedtime didn’t actually change but the daylight did. Harried parents everywhere must dread daylight saving changes.

Trying to get wee ones to stick to their bedtime routines and rouse them in the mornings seems like a herculean task.

Even now as an adult, it takes quite a bit of adjustment to get used to the changes.

It means going to bed earlier, waking up earlier . . . wanting to take naps in the middle of the day.

We have a Kiwi to thank for the concept of daylight saving. Entomologist George Hudson proposed the idea of a two-hour shift to the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1895. And for such a Kiwi reason too . . . he wanted to go bug hunting after work in the summer.

Nowadays we’re less about bug hunting and more about other after-work hobbies such as running, walking, hunting, sports training, gardening or other things that require a significant amount of daylight to take part.

Having the option to do these activities after work is now such an ingrained part of our Kiwi culture.

Daylight saving went through several incarnations until it was officially introduced in 1975, and was extended twice during the 80s.

NZ Daylight Time Order was introduced in 2007 and defines when the clocks are changed each year — the last Sunday in September the clocks go forward and the first Sunday in April the clocks go back.

There have been calls for New Zealand to ditch the practice. In March 2019 lobby group Take Back the Clocks pushed for the abolition of daylight saving, instead, adopting permanent summer hours, saying the twice-yearly changes disrupted people’s sleep and made it more complicated to do business overseas. The idea seemed to fall flat with politicians.

I believe the benefits of daylight saving outweigh the pitfalls. Having more time for a work-life balance in the warmer months is a great plus — the sacrifice being we need to power through the disruptions at the beginning and the end.

Let’s face it, winter happens every year. Nights are longer and days are shorter and we can’t do anything about it. We just need to make the most of the sunshine while we have it.