[Hitch]

Originally Posted by issybird

Technically, the US wouldn’t be doing away with DST; it would be doing away with Standard Time. Which begs the question of what exactly “Standard” means. As it’s used in current terminology, it means (roughly) that noon occurs when the sun is at its highest point in the sky. But an argument could be made (at least I like it) that “standard” should mean something more like regular or ordinary. And since we’re on daylight time twice as long as standard time, I’d say that daylight time actually is the standard, and standard time is the aberration. Which is essentially what you said.

Yeah, what she said. :-)

I’m just tired of hearing about the poor kids waiting for buses in the dark. In most places, either it won’t happen anyway, or it already happens some of the time. In my neck of the woods, the elementary school students don’t wait for the bus in the dark in the winter, but they get home at sunset, which also seems less than ideal especially when you think the kids might like to get out and play for a while. When the day’s short, you don’t have a ton of wiggle room.

Ah, crap, I walked in the damn dark and I'm still alive to talk about it. Yeah, yeah, I walked 50miles (3) to school in 3' of snow (mostly not). (But seriously, I did do a ton of walking because I enjoyed it, even though a bus would pick me up, for that year I went to public school.) And I was never overweight, either, FWIW. I don't know how many 'steps' 3 miles is, but it certainly kept me healthier than sitting on a damn bus.

And given the state of helicoptering parents, I never see unaccompanied elementary school students waiting for the bus anyway. By the time a kid hits middle school, you’d like to think it was old enough to negotiate the crepuscular periods safely.

When I see those endless lines at schools, parents lined up at the school parking lot, it makes me wonder how we all survived. Hell, how our mothers (by and large) survived, acting as chauffeurs. I mean, in today's world, who the hell can just up and leave their office, drive to some school and schlep their kiddos? How does that even work?

(And the BUS STOP! We have bus stops, for kids, here in my very rural area, right? And the parents park at the bus stop, so the kiddos don't walk--wait for it--from the BUS STOP to the house!? What the holy hell? I mean, sure, if your kid is 4-5 y.o., maybe even 6, I can see that, but older than that? You think they can't walk that quarter- half-mile home???? I can't tell if that's Helicopter Mum or Anti-Health Mum.)

My mother would have laughed, I mean, seriously. "You want me to what?"

Hitch