One Village, Seeking Help: Care.com

You've probably heard the African proverb, "It takes a village to raise a child." But what do you do when you find yourself without a village or maybe just a few members short? When our sweet daughter arrived, we were living in a city with no family anywhere nearby. I wanted/needed to keep working part-time, and although my husband is a true partner, we needed help to keep things running somewhat smoothly. Being a librarian, I researched child care options and decided that it would be wonderful to have a nanny in the house a few days a week. I found recommendations for care.com and ended up finding an absolutely perfect match to join our village.

The site lets you search geographically and by age, two things I appreciated because I really wanted someone with experience to care for our child (since I didn't have much myself!). We sorted through all the listings, used the automatic background checks, read the reviews, and interviewed three people.

It was truly difficult for me to trust someone with our child. I will never forget the first time they left for a walk to the park. I think I sat by the window the entire time. But our nanny loves our child and has taught us so much about raising her. We have the same child rearing philosophies, and it has been wonderful having her in our lives. She truly teaches, and I love the one-on-one interaction. She even takes her to library storytime now that she is older. She is flexible schedule-wise, so if we need an extra day or a longer day or go on vacation, we talk and figure out solutions. They really have fun together, and we are so lucky that she is actually a real British nanny, so she has certifications and schooling on child raising (plus a delightful accent and charming singing voice for ALL the children's songs).

I've also hired house cleaners through the website, with mixed results, as some people didn't reply to our emails. I figure I'd rather pay someone else who is quick and knowledgeable to do some of the tasks I was neglecting, like cleaning my hardword floors and bathrooms properly. I just figure at this point in my life, I'd rather work a few hours doing something I love and be able to hire someone to do the things I really don't enjoy--like toilets. :) Plus our house is our largest investment so it should be well maintained. I figure I'm helping the village too, since it employs someone else. When our daughter was an infant, I hired a company that had a team of 4 people that could come in a do the entire house in an hour, while we went to the park. That was really pricey, however. So now I have someone who comes in for 2 hours a week for $20 an hour that we found on care.com. She is really flexible, and will rotate the rooms/tasks based on what we need that week. She gets A LOT more done in those 2 hours than I ever could.

Besides nannies and house cleaners, there are babysitters, senior care providers, tutors, pet care providers, and a new option to try out a child care exchange with another mother. I also like that this site was started by a Mom. The cost is really affordable, especially compared to some of the nanny companies! Right now, it is $30 a month for a premium account which includes free background checks, $60 for 3 months (this is the option I did), and $120 for a full year (saves you 66%). You can also find jobs here, if you are a provider yourself.