Meeting the parents

By Ray Bixler, Posted March 18, 2010

How do you check your children’s friend’s references? 

My 11 year old son recently came home from school on a Friday asking if he could have a sleepover at Danny’s house.  Danny?  Danny who?  

This was the first time my wife and I had ever heard of a boy named Danny, so we didn’t offer up a quick, “Yes, you may.”  We tried to get as much information about Danny from our son, yet if any of you have ever tried to get information from an 11-year-old boy you know it’s not easily done.  “Who is Danny?” “A buddy.”  “How come we haven’t heard you talk about him before?” “I don’t know.”  “What’s he like?”  “He’s cool.”  “Where’s he live?”  “Down the street.”  “Is he in your class?”  “Yes.”  “Can you reply with more than two word answers?”  “Huh?”   Arrrggghhhh! 

So what to do?  Maybe we’re conservative parents, yet having our son sleepover at the house of a boy whom we didn’t know was not going to work, so we suggested that he spend some time with his new friend the following day with maybe a sleepover sometime in the near future.  This, of course, was not received enthusiastically, yet we got the “grunt” sound that means “ok” in our house.  

For those of you who think our reply was appropriate, I ask you, “Why did we care and what was the purpose of us suggesting something other than a sleepover?”  For us, we needed to meet Danny’s family.  

Whenever one of our kids starts a friendship with someone new, we like to meet their parents, even if it’s a brief hello when we drop off our son or daughter at their house.  We try to quickly determine … “Do they seem rational … do they communicate well … is their home somewhat organized … do their kids speak to them in a respectful way?”  Of course there’s more that we try to gather than this, yet we do feel it’s necessary to make a quick read to determine if a new friend of our child comes “from a respectful and stable home.”  When I asked one of my peers if they thought we were being overly concerned parents, she offered me this story: 

“I once met a parent who dropped off her kid (then 14) at our house for the first time and she said “I don’t know how you guys can manage these sleepovers; when kids come to our house, I just take a sleeping pill and close my door.” 

Needless to say, she thought we were doing the right thing. 

So how does this play out in the business setting?  When I hear that certain organizations have stopped checking applicants’ references, or they only get employment dates verified, I think to myself, aren’t they taking chances going into this new employer/employee relationship?  In this day and age, especially now that there are terrific online reference-checking tools that dramatically improve the quality of information a company can receive on an applicant, why would anyone hire an applicant without “meeting the parents” first?  Is the applicant organized?  Do they communicate well?  Are they respectful of others?  Yes, in the business setting “the parents” are former managers and peers, yet not offering these former managers or peers the opportunity to candidly offer their insight on an applicant’s behaviors should really no longer be acceptable as a business practice when new services allow “the parents” to directly provide such insight.