Bedtime for Grown-ups

 I was a very willful child

  And a stubborn one as well;

What I put my parents through

   I really hate to tell.

 I don’t know if it was of import

   That I go to sleep at nine o’clock;

I only know I fought against it

   With the stubbornness of a rock.

 I always got a spanking

   Before each night was through;

My dad would end up angry

   Because he was stubborn too;

 But somehow over time I learned

   To sleep when I am tired;

And these days, when it’s nine o’clock,

   My energy has expired.

 Sometimes I try to stay awake

   To watch a TV show—

I wake up when it’s over,

   Then off to bed I go.

 I think my Daddy would have smiled

   In those days of “way back when”

If he’d foreseen me nodding now…

  The way he did back then.

                                         E. Williams