Found felony record… not sure if I should say something
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IDK, if I wrote in asking if I should speak up when I’ve uncovered information about domestic abuse, and the responses started questioning whether I was even capable of selecting appropriate babysitter candidates or telling me I’d violated this couple’s privacy in an egregious way by seeking out information I could use to destroy their careers, I’d be a little offended. I’d only think these tangents are relevant if the letter somehow seemed unhinged, but it didn’t. Anyway, I’ll stop.
I wasn’t questioning whether she is capable of finding appropriate babysitters.
I also didn’t say she or her husband absolutely violated their privacy?
I wrote, “It seems a little invasive to me.”
I don’t know her husband’s methods, this background checking and sleuthing methods sounds like maybe it could be. I used the word borderline.
Nor did I ever say they ran a background check to intentionally destroy their careers. I was ruminating about the power this information holds once you have it.
I don’t see why my thoughts and tangents are more offensive when the letter writer is not unhinged. I also wrote that I’m not judging her or them for this search. I haven’t had to google a childcare candidate yet in my life, and I wrote that I could see myself in her shoes.
I’m sharing my thoughts and opinions as I form them. It’s a conversation in the forums. In no way did I say they are bad people for running whatever check.
I understand how having an easy feeling relationship with a teacher or a coach could feel like a natural progression to ask them to babysit your children, and I don’t think badly of her for doing that.
Where I am, there’s a boatload of options, all broadcasting their licenses and background checks, and I’ve never had to scramble to find childcare, or felt compelled to ask anyone I didn’t know really well to watch my children for days, including overnights.
I also didn’t say becboo should or would take that info to the gym the coach works for, I said they now have that power.
I didn’t say she would, or should, or shouldn’t tell the gym. I said she could if she wanted to. There is the potential.
So this became a much bigger hot button post that I had initially intentioned. My original question was literally whether or not I should pass along this pretty alarming information about someone who is kind to my daughter and my daughter really cares about, but I thought she might not be aware of.
I do not have concerns regarding whether or not it would have been appropriate to ask MB to watch our kiddos for a few days, and to reiterate again, this was in no way a background check. This was literally information that is available by entering someone’s name on our county courthouse website, and we were looking for driving related information. I am not sure the “average Joe” knows how easy it is to access it, but it is not overly invasive, and I do not think it was inappropriate to look it up prior to asking (I have taken note of the fact though that many people did feel this was inappropriate and will consider that moving forward).
It also had never occurred to me to mention something to their place of employment.
I understand what you were asking, but as you know, we often discuss the ethical and other aspects of posts. Forums, amirite?
In your initial post you wrote you don’t normally creep on people, so in some way you knew that might come up and you already felt that was creeping. His record is ALARMING. It is. If she was a friend of yours, I would be all caps typing you should tell her. But, as you’ve written, she really isn’t.
I still don’t think looking up criminal records on a county site is a normal first step. Asking her is the first step. If you are concerned to the point of creeping, that person probably shouldn’t be watching children for multiple days and overnight.
@anon, I guess we can agree to disagree. I absolutely do not think it’s weird to look at the driving records of individuals who might be transporting your children, and as a parent, I would be doing a disservice to my kids if I wasn’t vigilant. And unfortunately, “knowing” someone well is no indication of whether they are a safe driver/not a sexual predator/etc.
I absolutely get that many people on this forum thought it was weird/inappropriate to look up someone’s driving record before making arrangements with them, and I will certainly keep that in mind moving forward. To reiterate, I was NOT trying to check a criminal record, but it is the exact same search feature. If I enter my name, the speeding ticket I got in 2004 pops up.
If you saw her boyfriend cheating on her (or assume he was cheating without fact) would you feel comfortable in getting involved and telling her?! Probably not. This is the same situation. Also, im going to assume you wanted to check the coach out before asking and then having to decline because you found concerning history. BC it would be really weird to randomly background check someone without cause. (Public knowledge or not) You have now put yourself in an awkaward position of knowing this mans criminal past which is going to affect your relationship with the coach and your daughter playing on this team. Also fun fact: my state allows us tools to not only have access to public criminal records, sex offender registry and their address locations but same information with drug offenders.
If you’re just doing this to be vigilant with your kids, can we stop pretending this was just for driving records?
Unfortunately, even background checks don’t tell you everything about someone’s history of abuse.
Seems weird to be proud of someone’s sleuthing when it’s just a simple name search but ok.
I think you know where you went wrong here, you charged ahead and looked up information before you actually had any concrete need for it. Now whether you like it or not you’ve inserted yourself into someone else’s life without their knowledge or permission. If your version of vigilance is something to be so proud of then own up to it instead of sneaking around. Tell someone what your intention is BEFORE you do it, or is it only ok when you’re not the one being meddled with?
“I absolutely do not think it’s weird to look at the driving records of individuals who might be transporting your children…”
I don’t think that is weird necessarily (I don’t know anyone who has done this, but I get it to some degree). But I think it’s best to wait until someone has said they may be available and also consent to it. Say a person had some sort of ticket they were not proud of. If you said, “Hey, can you babysit? By the way, I like to check driving records of anyone who transports my kids,” then they could decline to help and be able to make the decision whether you find out that info or not. Or they might self-disclose beforehand and be able to explain themselves — you might still decide you don’t want them to do it, but they at least get to give context that they prefer people to know.
Additionally, if you know the driving record check is going to turn up criminal records, including those of the person’s partner, then you should say that too before they agree to it. In our society, I don’t think that availability of information really is relevant to privacy. Why? Because so much stuff is available to us now that we may be able to access legally and easily, but that doesn’t always make it ethically right. And even if it’s ethical, I think we also have to try to allow people to preserve some sense of privacy despite technological advances. I think our society focuses a lot on whether a person “can” do something or “has a right to” but doesn’t focus much on whether the person would want them to or whether someone would feel weird. Even though there’s a lot of things we “can” do, it’s nice sometimes to voluntarily defer to what someone would want or not want too.
I’m not trying to give you a hard time, as you might feel some people are. So I hope you don’t feel that about me. I just want to add another perspective to it, especially since this will probably come up in the future with other potential babysitters.
You absolutely invaded this womans privacy, and you are wrong to have done so. She’s a coach, which means she went through a background check before being hired to work with children in the first place. And she didn’t ask for you to hire her or to have alone time with your children, so there is NO REASON you should have been checking her and anyone in her life’s driving record so she could have the “privilege” of doing you and your husband a FAVOR (yes, a favor- nobody besides a professional like a nanny WANTS to spend a weekend taking care of your kids). Leave her alone from now on, or become the story she tells her friends about the batshit crazy mother doing background checks on her BOYFRIEND.
@Northern, as a FYI, since it’s obviously not relevant to my post, softball coaches only have to go through background checks if they’re competing in USA softball sanctioned tournaments. These are coaches at a private training facility who obviously didn’t go through background checks or the individual with two felonies presumably wouldn’t have passed…
I don’t know if this is because I only have friends other people view as “hyper vigilant,” but a lot of people I know check driving records of people who might be transporting their kids, ask before play dates if the owners have guns or pools, etc, and I have literally never had a second thought on whether that was strange. I also check the sex offender registry every couple of months, and when I learned the other day that an offender who had assaulted a nine old girl had moved in down the street from our friends, I let them know straight away , and again, consider that a normal part of parenting in this day and age.
