What does it mean?

Yesterday morning, after Miss E lied to me, I emailed Marsha and SW and told them what happened. The social worker called the school and confirmed that she never showed. She in turn talked to both Marsha and her husband.

Everyone is very appreciative of my email as they had "no idea at all" that she was AWOL.

Now I am trying to get my head around this.

It is clear that Miss E did not sleep at home. There is no way that she left the house prior to 6:30am. So she wasn't at home when they went to bed. She also did not get up, walk downstairs to get into my car, while Marsha was busily getting the rest of the kids ready for school.

Now the second part I get. Miss E has been climbing out of bed after I call her from the driveway. I suspect that Marsha often does not see her during the 60-120 seconds she between her bedroom and the front door. (I'm including time to go to the restroom and to collect the P*p T*rt she usually brings out with her -- although she could keep the pastries in her room).

It also means though that they were unaware that she had not come home the night before.

I'm not necessarily criticizing here. I mean, it might be this sort of hands-off, uninvolved treatment that Miss E needs to stay in a home. Just letting her come and go as she pleases, given that her history is one of very good attendance at school, track, and work, might be the right idea.

But still, it seems so strange.

If I had a teenager not come home before I went to bed, I would do a bed check in the morning to make certain he or she made it back.

If they just don't have a curfew it might explain why it is that Miss E is exhausted every single morning since she moved. Although other explanations are possible too. It might be that as emancipation gets closer she is having more trouble sleeping. I had had to wake her up a couple times while she was still at Annabelle's.

My first gut response is to think that the parents are not doing their job. I mean they didn't know she hadn't come home at all. On the other hand I am always saying that it is not fair that privileged kids get to go to college and live in dorms where they have this halfway house between childhood and adulthood, and other kids, especially foster kids don't. For foster kids it tends to be intense supervision followed by total independence. So maybe this is exactly what she needs.