Friday, May 18, 2007

Something Less Than Honest

Last week Beth put more miles on the van than should have been, if she had only gone where she said she'd gone. When we asked her about it, she said she had gone to her friend's house after the softball game and then taken a wrong turn and gotten lost. So, instead of 15 miles, she put 60 miles on the van. I also noticed some scratches on the back of the van. When we asked her about that, she said she backed into a mailbox. Why didn't she mention either of these things when she got home that night? She didn't seem to see any need to tell us about getting lost and driving miles out of her way. She didn't want to tell us about the scratches because we would 'freak out' and she might lost her driving privileges.

So, we went over how she is supposed to tell us about things. It is worse to try and hide things than just be honest about it. If she wants us to trust her, she needs to show she is trustworthy. Honestly, I don't think she gets this. Today I went online to transfer some money into her checking account - only to find that she has been spending money at McDonald's and Walmart. Fine. It's her money. She can spend it on whatever she wants to spend it on. However, on both of the days she spent this money, she told us she was at a friend's house. On one occasion she even said her friend's mom had been out shopping and brought the t-shirt home for her friend. Her friend didn't want it, so she gave it to Beth. And the mom brought home food from McDonald's too. This is something that this mom would do, so I didn't question it - until this morning.

How hard would it have been for the girl to pick up the phone and say she was going to Walmart with her friend or her friend's family? Instead she chose to go anyway and then lie about it later. I'm sick and tired of the lies and the sneaking around. Seriously, she wants us to trust her, but she doesn't think she has to do anything to earn that trust. We're supposed to trust her just because? I can't do it, and now I'm wondering what else she's lied about. I hate that I have to keep tabs on everything she says she's doing, but I guess I need to start being more diligent about that. Otherwise I forget