Moms use tokens instead of cash and babysit for each other
By Brooklynne Kelly Peters
4/30/10
In 2007, East Boston mom Ellery Cline sent out the message that she wanted to begin a babysitting co-op. Cline saw the unique opportunities mothers could have by taking care of each other's children on a barter system. They could use each other to babysit so that they could get some time to themselves. A group of eight women, including Pam Neave, and their children gathered at the 303 Café on Sumner Street, and the group was formed.
Neave, who had just relocated with her husband and son, Gideon, from Cambridge, welcomed the opportunity for community.
"In Cambridge, we didn't know that many people," Neave said. "I definitely didn't feel the same kind of community that we feel here."
Members of the co-op started out with only a few guidelines;
the currency of the group was little paper chips called bucks. Everybody received ten at first, and
one hour of babysitting cost one buck.
Members were encouraged to spend or use at least four bucks a
month.
They created a Google group to provide a place to post
babysitting requests. Someone
would post when they would need a babysitter on the Google group and wait for a
response.
The group now includes 15 mothers, and is about to add a new
one. Tricia Schmidt, who just had
Mason Frances in February, is extremely tempted by the idea of the co-op.
"It still allows you to have a life," Schmidt said. "It's not totally expensive and you get
to know all [the] other parents and talk to them and get to know their kids and
follow them as they grow up. That's
pretty sweet."
Pam Neave, whose children are Gideon, 3, and Charis, 1,
loves the intimacy of the co-op Google group. However, Neave is also a part of the Eastie Parents Group,
which has 75 members, and she said that Google group is a whole different
story.
"The thing that's negative about the parents' group is that
I don't know a lot of those people, and it just feels a little impersonal
sometimes," Neave said.
Neave recounted a situation where a mother on the parent's
group posted that she was having trouble nursing.
"Part of me was like, 'Oh, gosh, I just want to go and be
with her because I know how hard that is.' But I've never met this woman. It's just a little harder to communicate by email because
there's not that face-to-face contact."
But babysitting isn't the only thing that Eastie mothers provide for one another. The mothers share car seats, infant clothes, and of course, friendship.