What database are you using that requires you to do such a ridiculous thing?? Surely there's a function that your database provides that will allow you to either cast a string to the appropriate structure and/or provide the timestamp yourself.

For example, MySQL will do timestamping for you with the TIMESTAMP column. You can create a trigger in Oracle that will populate the timestamping column at the right time. Other RDBMS's have similar features. The only one I can think of that might require this is SQLite, but you aren't required to put it in any format for SQLite (as it stores everything as strings, anyway).