My daughter loves to lie, and it destroyed my family
Chapter 1
My daughter, Lily, started lying in
kindergarten.
The teacher, Ms. Johnson, came for a home
visit, and Lily just sobbed, clinging to her leg.
“Mommy broke my fingers! I can’t do my
homework!” she wailed.
Ms. Johnson called the cops.
I was hauled downtown, lost my job.
When I got back, before I could even talk to Lily, I saw she’d snapped a picture of me
く
talking to Ms. Johnson and blasted it to the
whole family group chat.
“When Daddy’s not home, Ms. Johnson.
comes over every day to see Mommy.
Mommy’s happier then, and doesn’t hit me.”
My husband, Mark, who’d rushed home after
seeing that, kicked me so hard I thought my
leg was gonna snap.
I was crying, trying to explain it was all lies,
but Lily just tilted her head, all innocent.
“Mommy, I’m just a little kid. I just said what I
saw. I don’t lie.”
Mark filed for divorce.
In court, I fought tooth and nail for custody.
but Lily just broke down, begging her dad to
take her away.
“I don’t want to send pictures to strange men.
Mommy scares me. Will you protect me?”
The judge then pulled up stuff from my phone
–
all these sites and apps where I was selling
pictures of Lily dressed like some kind of doll.
The court was packed with angry moms and
crazy child safety advocates.
They dragged me down, beat the hell out of
me, stomped on my neck until I couldn’t
breathe anymore.
And I still didn’t understand why Lily, my own.
daughter, would do this to me.
Г
Then I woke up, back to the day Lily first
accused me of hurting her.
“Ms. Johnson, I did finish my homework. But
our dog, Buster, ate it last night. I can’t hand
it in now.”
Lily was hugging Ms. Johnson’s leg, all
sweetness and innocence.
Ms. Johnson looked at me, like she was
checking to see if it was true.
“Lily’s mom, is that right?”
I looked at my daughter’s sweet face, and a
shiver went down my spine. I knew, right then,
I was back.
Last time, Lily had used the same dumb
excuse. I’d tried to be understanding,
reasonable.
“It’s okay if you didn’t finish, honey. You just
gotta own up to it. We can do it together, but
lying is not good. You need to apologize to
Ms. Johnson.”
Before Ms. Johnson could say a word, Lily
plopped down on the floor, bawling like her
heart was broken.
“Ms. Johnson… I can’t do my homework.
Mommy comes home drunk every night and
beats me. She broke two of my fingers! I
can’t even hold a pencil. Please don’t be mad
at me!”
L
Ms. Johnson scooped Lily up, checked her
fingers, and sure enough, there were some
bruises and scrapes. She called 911 without a
second thought.
I was scrambling to explain that Lily had hurt
her fingers playing on the jungle gym
yesterday.
I managed to get the security footage from
the complex, made them believe me.
Still, the whole mess blew up at work. My
reputation was trashed, and I lost my job.
I couldn’t figure it out. Lily was always so
well–behaved, so helpful. Why would she
make up such a lie just to get out of
homework?
Dragging myself home that night, I didn’t even
get a chance to talk to Lily before Mark, my
husband, kicked the door open and went for
- me.
“You cheating bitch! I’m out there working my
ass off, and you’re screwing around with.
some boy toy?”
I was stunned as Mark started yelling. Then I
saw the picture Lily had sent to the family
group chat. I understood.
