I totally agree that all those examples are better references than a piece of paper but there have been stories of hdcp's who don't have clean records but because parents didn't ask they didn't know. Those are the situations that I think of when a parent asks and completely understand why they do.

I also don't think a parent should rely on the clean cheque only and should continue to "investigate" their hdcp until they are certain they trust them. Parents that just put their child in my care without so much of a thought as to what kind of person I am make me wonder how they do that. Of course I'm totally safe and trustworthy but they don't know that!