I'll always be grateful to my neighbor Deanne. With children a little bit older than mine, she had already organized an active and safe baby sitting coop in our part of town when I started to understand why people need a reliable sitter once in a while. At the time I didn't fully appreciate what organizing such an enterprise meant. It takes leadership to get anything started and a certain kind of conviction and good humored perseverance to keep something going.

Fortunately Deanne had a good measure of all those qualities and by example taught the rest of us what it means to make and maintain a community. It was Deanne who made sure that the books balanced at the end of the month and that people's complaints got heard. And it was Deanne who often made sure that we all came together at a potluck or park picnic several times a year. As the years went by, the children grew and so did our involvement with each other. The rest of us caught on to Deanne's vision on and the co-op became the foundation for a real, old-time Neighborhood with a capital N.

In these times it is not at all unusual for people not to know the names of the people next door, much less down the street. It's through the co-op that we got to know each other and to depend on each other. Without such a focus, I wonder if we would be yet another block of people who might recognize each other with a friendly wave but never explore the richness of each other's families. Instead we have watched and helped each other's children grow. And the relationships made through the group have endured.

With baby sitting fees so costly (even the 12 year old down the street commands 6+ dollars an hour - and gets it), many parents simply stop going out very much. A baby sitting co-op uses time rather than money as the currency, making it possible for young parents (who often have more time than money) to get a needed break. A further, and perhaps even more important, advantage is that the sitters are always other parents who are more tuned in to children's needs than young teens.

A co-op makes it possible to ask for help more easily because the helper will get "payment" in return. It also becomes more possible to say no to a neighbor's desperate plea for a night out without feeling guilty (There are 20+ other people she or he c an call.). The give and take of a co-op keeps relationships clear and equal. No one can be exploited. No one can be a martyr. No one can abuse the friendships by expecting too much too often.

Here's how it works: Essentially you earn coupons or points by sitting for someone else which you can then "spend" when you need a sitter. Here are some basic rules, drawn from a successful co-op that ran continuously for over 12 years when all the k ids grew up enough not to need or want sitters anymore. There's nothing sacred about the list. It's just what worked for a good long time. Your group will need to discuss these ideas, adapt them, and revise them to fit your neighborhood situation. The discussing and deciding is the agenda of the first organizational meeting and usually begins the process that makes your co-op your own.

10 Basic Rules for Building a Successful Baby-sitting Co-op

1. You need 16 - 20 families to make this work. So many people are so busy these days that a smaller number often means that no one is available the night you need a sitter. A co-op with more than 20 families means that people don't know each other w ell enough to feel free to call each other.
   

2. Membership should be limited to families within a set geographical area. This encourages people to get to know each other and helps create the sense of community that will keep the co-op going. (The exception to this rule is when a family member moves out of the neighborhood but wants to remain in the coop.)
   

3. Anyone who wishes to join must be known personally by a current member of the co-op for at least a few months and be recommended by them. A member must be in the co-op at least a quarter year before recommending another family. The co-op is such a good idea that most people want to join up when they hear about it. But you want to be sure that someone in the group knows a new person long enough to truly vouch for safety.
   

4. Coupons or points are used as payment. Coupons have a face value. A point system usually assigns 1 point for every 15 minutes of sitting. Always round up when figuring payment. Our original co-op was on the point system. The co-op founded by the new generation of young families in the neighborhood is based on coupons. I'll explain both systems. Your group will decide what is best for you.
   

   If you decide to use coupons, you'll need to print up official co-op play money. Each family gets 24 one hour coupons, 8 half hour coupons, and 3 overnight coupons to start. There is no replacement of coupons due to loss. Each quarter a new family volunteers to be secretary with the job of hosting the next gathering (see rule 10 ), revising the membership list, holding our funds and coupons that are yet to be distributed.
   

   If you decide to use points, you'll need to set up a notebook with a chart for each month's activity and appoint a secretary to track use of points. We rotated the job each month and gave the secretary family of the month bonus points for doing the sometimes awful job of straightening out who sat for whom when before passing the books to the next family. Whoever found themselves secretary during the month of the next quarterly meeting was responsible for hosting that meeting and updating the membership list.
   

5. No family should be allowed to either accumulate more than 100 points or 24 coupon hours or to use more than 100 points or 24 coupon hours. When someone is close to the limit in either direction, they need to either do some sitting, or use a sitter to get that balance down. This rule ensures that no one overuses the co-op and that no one ends up feeling used and abused by co-op members.
   

6. Our rule was that during day time hours, children were brought to the sitter's house. After 6:00 p.m., sitters went to the children's house so that children could go to sleep in their own beds.
   

7. Some co-ops charge an extra point or coupon if children are given a meal. We found it easier not to do that and to just figure that it would all even out eventually. It did.
   

8. Some co-ops charge an extra point or coupon to families with more than two children. We also decided not to do that. Parents with large families need sitting all the more and we felt that we could give them the break. Also, the simpler you can keep the rules, the more likely it is that everyone will remember them.
   

9. A parents needs to settle the points or coupons to be paid at the end of the sitting time and before the sitter leaves. In the point system, the person who does the sitting calls the points exchanged in to the secretary within 24 hours or loses the points. This rule prevents misunderstandings and hard feelings about just how many points were used. The 24 hour rule prevents people from having to rely on memory for how many points they got from who 3 weeks ago. It also makes the secretary's life easier. It's a nightmare when everyone starts to correct the points they used and accumulated during calls at the end of the month because the books don't balance. On the coupon system, coupons are exchanged before the sitter leaves. Using coupons bypasses the problem of folks not calling in points but creates another one. With coupons, everyone is totally on the honor system about not breaking the 24 coupon hour rule. So it's a trade-off.
   

10. Make sure the group meets for a potluck or an afternoon at the park at least every 4 months. Attendance needs to be as close to mandatory as is humane. People in the group need to know each other so that they can feel confident about leaving the children with each other. Your children need to know the other families so that they feel comfortable when they are left with them. The natural tendency is for people to find one or two other families that they like and to use them exclusively for sitting. This can doom the co-op. For a co-op to work, each family needs to be comfortable with at least half the group.

Fees: The whole point of the co-op is to make child care as cost-free as possible. However, there are usually some costs - copying, postage, printing up coupons, etc. We charged people $8 as an entry fee. Some co-ops have a nominal annual dues.

Usually some natural leaders emerge who shepherd and nurture the co-op. Without them, the group can easily evaporate. It's important to recognize those that provide the attention and caring that makes the co-op a vital, central presence in your neighborhood. When it works well, everyone benefits - sometimes in surprising ways.

In our case, the co-op changed anonymous people who lived in a couple of blocks of houses into a group of neighbors who grew comfortable in each other's homes. Quarterly gatherings expanded into a 4th of July party, a Halloween tradition of haunted houses and a Christmas/Holiday party. When life handed various families challenges or rewards, there was a community to notice, to help, to celebrate. We supported each other through chicken-pox, lice epidemics, colicky kids, and losses. We celebrated baby showers, anniversaries, and birthdays. Yes, these are the kinds of things that sometimes happen anyway in a neighborhood but with so many families stretched by overly busy lives, I really do wonder if we would have managed to connect. The co-op gave us the kind of regular contact that makes it possible for strangers to become familiar and comfortable friends. What started as a way to save money on baby sitters became what community is all about.

Thanks Deanne

Dr. Marie advises:

To foster community, develop a parent support system, and save some money besides . . .

• Organize a group of parents of same age kids and give yourselves the gift of a baby sitting co-op.