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Baby-sitting co-ops regain popularity
May 17, 2010 (McClatchy Newspapers - McClatchy-Tribune News Service via COMTEX) --
Romance can require some serious cash flow for parents.
With the going rate for teenage baby sitters hovering around $8 an hour, a 2 {-hour movie date adds up to $40.
That's without popcorn.
If my husband and I go to a casual dinner beforehand, it's at least $80.
I'm blessed to have my children, but sometimes I just want to hang out with my husband without the kids and wearing something other than jelly-stained yoga pants and an old running shirt.
So tapped-out parents like us are recycling an old solution: baby-sitting cooperatives.
The co-op is essentially free baby-sitting by parents, for parents. You earn points for hours spent watching other people's (usually friends') children, and "cash" them in when you need a night out or want to run an errand without your toddler.
My mother-in-law, Jackie Lofing, belonged to a baby-sitting co-op in east Sacramento, Calif., back in the late 1970s when her three children were grade school and preschool age.
The co-op, which had more than a dozen participating families, would swap baby-sitting hours, with one parent serving as secretary and tracking the number of hours spent watching children, hours used and the balance each member carried. Members would take turns serving as secretary.
"Usually you'd baby-sit children the ages of your own kids so they could play together, unless it was in the evening," she said.
Day baby-sitting meant children were brought to the baby sitter's home; night sessions the opposite.
My mother-in-law used the co-op about once a week.
"It was really nice to have," she said.
Gary Myers, author of "Smart Mom's Baby-Sitting Co-Op Handbook," (Tukwila Publishing, $14.95, 128 pages) said the lousy economy helped relaunch the co-op idea. "Because everyone is looking for a way to cut cost in baby-sitting," he said.
Myers, a mechanical engineer, wrote the book after a baby-sitting co-op in University Place, Wash., helped save the sanity of his wife, a stay-at-home mother of three.
"I tease her that her tantrums were getting worse than the kids'," he said.
Myers suggests starting a co-op with two or three friends, then expanding to at least 10 people, so "you'll have coverage at all times."
Parents these days are using the Internet to help start baby-sitting co-ops.
Hundreds have sprung up in more than 40 states since HiveMoms, a website dedicated to baby-sitting co-ops and play dates, launched last summer, said founder Kareen Looi.
"The greatest number of members are in California, particularly the Bay Area," said Looi, who is expecting her first child in late July.
The idea behind HiveMoms was born while Looi, 39, struggled to get pregnant for years. With family in Singapore and friends in Virginia - where she lived before moving to San Jose - she wondered how she'd afford a date night with her husband.
"You can spend more on baby-sitting than you do your date," she said.
The website helps parents start co-ops and suggests a standard set of bylaws governing things like points per hour. HiveMoms suggests 1 point per child per hour; Myers' method allots 4 points per hour for the first child, 2 points per hour for each additional child, according to his website www.babysittingcoop.com.
The site allows parents within a specific co-op to post their baby-sitting needs and it automatically tracks points.
Terra Colson, 28, started a HiveMoms account in November after moving from Rancho Cordova, Calif., to east Sacramento. The stay-at-home mom likes the online concept, but so far her co-op on HiveMoms hasn't attracted members.
"The idea is great, but because there's not more of a push behind it, it's not as big as it could be," she said.
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(c) 2010, The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.).
Visit The Sacramento Bee online at http://www.sacbee.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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