I have a DateField in a Django 1.8 model, something like:

```
from django.db import models
birth_date = models.DateField()

```

When it goes onto a form, I get back a 'naive' object:

```
birth_date = the_form.cleaned_data['birth_date']

```

Printing birth\_date in the debugger:

```
ipdb> birth_date
datetime.date(2015, 6, 7)

```

Then when this thing is saved to a database, I get a warning, as the documentation promises:

```
RuntimeWarning: SQLite received a naive datetime (2015-06-08 01:08:21.470719) while time zone support is active.

```

I've read [some](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/topics/i18n/timezones/#troubleshooting) [articles](https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/24281) on this, and I am still confused. What should I do with this date?

Should I convert it to a DateTime, make it timezone-aware, then back into a Date? Should I make the model a DateTimeField and abandon DateFields? What are best practices here?