Found felony record… not sure if I should say something
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Me too, and the “yeah, looking all you like isn’t illegal, but it’s also not really cool” camp.
I agree with the general consensus that you absolutely should not divulge this information anonymously. If her partner is potentially abusive, the chances of him finding it and becoming angry are very high- if he isn’t, you’ve done harm to no good end. Do keep an eye on her to make sure she is all right, don’t feel you must intervene in person unless you see clear signs you ought to, find a different babysitter.
The original question was wanting to know if you should tell the coach about the information you found on bf. My opinion was and still is no.Not only do I think it is intrusive when you dont know someone well but it sets up the awkward conversation of having to possbily explain about his past which at the end of the day is not your business.
I don’t plan on saying anything, but I do plan on being more attentive moving forward. As I said, during my limited interactions with the boyfriend, he has always been kind and friendly to my daughter, and I’ve never seen anything weird between him and MB either.
To answer some of the other questions that cropped up: I assume MB views our relationship similarly to me (friendly, but not friends). I try to always be appreciative and generous with my kids’ coaches (and expect my kids to be the same), so I have generally had good relationships with them.
I agree 100% that childcare workers/coaches/etc should have a personal/private life that is of no business to their clients/families. I probably disagree that this particular information falls under that category. Side note: I am always surprised when I get FB requests from these individuals, and accept as to not be rude, but then promptly unfollow because I generally don’t want to know what’s going on.
I do appreciate all of the feedback, but I definitely wish it had not gotten so heated and so off track at times!
I think one of the differences between us is that I wouldn’t feel comfortable with a babysitter’s boyfriend coming over while we weren’t home. One time, I had a fiance ask me if he could stay and my husband and I had to tell him that we were overprotective parents and it wasn’t personal but it just wouldn’t be comfortable for us. So it hasn’t really gotten messy that way for us. If I thought a friend or boyfriend was coming by, I might have looked up their names, too.
I feel bad for the coach because it sounds like she either knows she is dating a man with a history of assaulting female partners or she doesn’t know, and neither option is a good one. Especially because she probably is paying an opportunity cost of guilt by association by people who want to avoid unnecessary drama or discomfort.
Good luck finding a suitable babysitter. I’d love to hear more about the adoption, nosy me 🙂
I don’t know why this thread keeps poking at me. I think your plan on not saying anything at the moment and being more attentive is a good plan. But just to put it out there if there ever comes a time you feel like saying something, I also think it would be okay.
IF you didn’t mind things being very awkward, If you could live with her talking about the conversation to mutual acquaintances, IF it would be doable to find another gym and coach your daughter likes, and because you feel strongly you crossed no lines,
you could ask to speak with her in private, briefly. You could tell her it has come to your attention that her boyfriend has a public record of felonious assault of past girlfriends. If she asks how you found out, you could tell her someone told you in confidence; it’s true. You could tell her you aren’t trying to pry, or make it your business, but out of concern you wanted her to make sure she was aware of the information. You could assure her you won’t bring it up again, but it was important to you to know she was at least aware.
And leave it at that.
I think everything you’re doing is fine – I think its the right call to keep your research quiet, although now that you know it, you don’t have to make decisions about how/who you interact with as if you’ve never discovered what you did.
As an aside – while you can learn a lot about people from what’s publicly available, its not complete you know? Which is why generally, its never worth disclosing because even though you think you know a lot about what’s going, there are gaps in your knowledge.
You can know this guy has a record, you can know he gave up his child – but you don’t know what’s happened in his life over the last four years. You don’t know what sort of work he’s done on himself in the past four years to make it right. Maybe he’s been in pretty serious therapy the whole time and has turned his life around. You don’t know how candid he’s been with MB, how much work they’ve done together to get in a good place.
You know a lot, but you don’t know everything, so don’t go throwing bombs into people’s lives based on partial information.
