It’s usually 8:30 PM when I give the first warning shot to my two teenage daughters.
At 9 PM, I say, “It’s time for you two to head upstairs.” I repeat this nearly every night.
And nearly every night they argue. “But why do we have to go to bed at 9?” they lament. “We’re not children anymore.”
“You don’t have to go to bed, but you can’t stay down here in the living room past 9. That’s our time. We haven’t seen each other all day, and most of the day we’ve been focused on you and work. We need our time, too.”
They roll their eyes and huff at us.
The other night, I went as far as to sing the Semisonic song “Closing Time” until they threw pillows at me. I kept repeating, “Closing time, you don’t have to go home but you can’t … stay … here!”
