Mention the words “child care” to a mom-to-be or a veteran parent, and their blood pressure is likely to spike. Memories of putting themselves on daycare waitlists months before giving birth. Weighing the financial and flexibility pros and cons of daycares vs. nannies, as well as nanny shares, babysitters, au pairs. There are both too many options and not enough. And every option is entirely too expensive. Enter the child care co-op.
Instead of shelling out a second mortgage for child care, some parents are drawn to a more communal form of child care that typically comes with a lower (or nonexistent) price tag. And these child care co-ops can exist in a couple different forms — a babysitting co-op or a co-op preschool, for example — and varying degrees of structure.
These aspects of community and child care costs are what Sarah Charlesworth, the current chair of the Mt. Airy/Chestnut Hill Babysitting Co-op in Philadelphia considers to be key factors in joining a child care co-op. “The main benefits of cooperative child care are local community building and strengthening (both for the parents and the children) and reducing child care expenses,” she says.
With its potential to save parents money and build strong community ties, child care co-ops can be incredibly beneficial for some families. Read on to see if this arrangement is right for you.
What is a child care co-op?
No two child care co-ops will look the same, but they have certain aspects in common, according to the experts we spoke to: there is a strong focus on building community and an emphasis on parental and/or caregiver involvement and contribution in the child care. With their decidedly hands-on approach, babysitting co-ops and co-op preschools have similar values but are structured differently.
Babysitting co-ops
Perhaps the most well-known type of child care co-op, babysitting co-ops function on a point system. Rather than exchanging money for babysitting, parents earn points when they babysit and spend points when they utilize another parent babysitter. The setup is also unique in that parents who are babysitting may watch the kids at their own home, or travel to the other family’s home, depending on their arrangement.
While the rules can differ from co-op to co-op, the Bloomington Babysitting Co-op in Minnesota has the following structure, according to Meghan Rodgers, the current chair:
- Babysitting hours are the currency — “You enter the co-op at zero hours,” says Rodgers. “Each month, you pay half an hour to the secretary and half an hour to the chair. When you babysit for another family, you gain hours. When someone watches for you, you lose hours.”
- If you make it onto the “Most in Debt” list, you get priority to take babysitting requests to earn time back.
- To join, prospective members pay for a background check and a deposit (which they get back when leaving the co-op with zero or positive hours). The co-op also follows the state’s daycare guidelines regarding pools and firearms and checks that they are properly secured during the interview process.
- Members pay dues once a year for website, marketing and social media costs.
Charlesworth adds that in the Mt. Airy/Chestnut Hill Babysitting Co-op, there are five steering committee positions that rotate among members and last 18 months (as well as a secretary position that changes hands monthly), including chair, membership, treasurer, books and secretary, and they are “responsible for ensuring that the cooperative is running smoothly overall: that members are using the co-op at least once a month, collecting nominal dues, planning, running and recording the minutes of twice-yearly general membership meetings, ensuring the database is accurate and running reports, facilitating the process of vetting and admitting new members and general troubleshooting.”
Co-op preschools
With their educational bent, co-op preschool co-ops like the Burien Cooperative Preschool in Des Moines, Washington keep costs lower than standard preschools by utilizing caregiver volunteers to handle operational tasks for the school. This allows them to only have two staff positions: their teachers, says Jillian Boshart, membership coordinator and board vice president for the preschool. The requirements for caregivers including the following:
- A parent or caregiver must attend school once a week with their child and assist in the classroom. This could look like helping with art projects, mowing the lawn, doing laundry, monitoring snacktime or special tasks related to the day’s lesson.
- In addition to the tuition, members pay a yearly registration fee and supplies fee.
- Families are expected to help with fundraising efforts, as it is one way they are able to keep tuition costs low.
The pros and cons of child care co-ops
Co-op child care is not for everyone, with its communal nature and heftier expectations for parental involvement, but for the right family, it can have a lot of benefits. The experts and parents we spoke to shared the following pros and cons to joining a child care co-op.
Pros
- The people caring for your children have hands-on experience because they are parents themselves.
- It can be easier and faster to find child care through a co-op vs. contacting individual babysitters or getting on traditional preschool, or child care center or daycare waitlists.
- Joining a child care co-op allows you to meet local families in similar life stages, which ultimately builds community.
- While the time invested certainly isn’t without value, child care co-ops can save parents money.
- In the case of co-op preschools, caregivers get to be more involved in their child’s day-to-day learning.
Cons
- First and foremost, child care co-ops come with a higher time commitment than simply hiring a babysitter or paying for a regular preschool program.
- In the case of babysitting co-ops, parents’ schedules don’t always line up, and it can be hard to find time to go out and/or pay off “debts.”
- According to Charlesworth, in households with male and female parents, there tends to be a gender gap, in that the female partner tends to be more involved and put forth more effort when it comes to child care co-op responsibilities.
- Depending on the structure of a babysitting co-op, parents may not like that they’re unable to choose the fellow parent who will be watching their children.
How to know if a child care co-op is right for you
Even though these pros and cons are a great place to start exploring your interest in joining a child care co-op, the experts we spoke to advised prospective parents to consider the following questions, as well.
Can you handle the time commitment?
While every child care co-op will have different amounts of parental involvement, it is a built-in feature of this caregiving structure. It can be a challenge, says Charlesworth, to ensure “that potential families understand that joining the coop is an investment of time, effort and care for the member community, not just a way to get free babysitting.”
Do you share the same values?
Before entering into an arrangement where you’re sharing child care responsibilities with others, it’s important to make sure you share similar values. Brianne Sanchez, a consultant and mother of two from Des Moines, Iowa advises asking questions about things like vaccines and gun safety, to make sure everyone is on the same page.
Is everyone in your household comfortable with the arrangement?
In both preschool and babysitting co-ops, you will have to interact with and/or care for other people’s children. Charlesworth advises asking yourself if your child will be OK with having a variety of sitters (if you’re participating in a babysitting co-op), and if you’ll be comfortable watching other’s children.
How to find and join a child care co-op
Because co-op preschools have a more official structure (with paid employees), finding one in your area may be as simple as heading to Google. Finding babysitting co-ops, on the other hand, can be a little trickier.
Sanchez stumbled upon her babysitting co-op when she saw a flier advertising “free babysitting” at a postpartum playgroup meeting. As luck had it, her friend belonged to the group and was moving, and she was able to take her spot in the group.
But if a serendipitous free child care discovery isn’t in your cards, Charlesworth suggests reaching out to “local, well-established community hubs and organizations, as well as local parent Facebook groups and listservs, to see if a co-op already exists in your area.”
You can also utilize sites like SittingAround to locate local babysitting co-ops or start your own.
If you can’t find one, create one
So you’ve chatted up other parents at the park, you’ve searched your local Facebook groups, and you’re still coming up empty-handed? Rodgers says that if you don’t have a child care co-op near you, “see if a few families at preschool, daycare, the library or other child class (gymnastics, music, etc) want to create one.”
And once you’ve decided to create a child care co-op, “get in touch with the leadership of an existing co-op to glean rules and procedures that you can emulate,” says Charlesworth. “Have clearly written by-laws or standard operating procedure documents so there is no room for misunderstanding or misinterpretation of how the co-op is run, how to join and how to leave.”
Final thoughts
For parents seeking an affordable and community-driven solution to child care, co-ops offer a potentially flexible alternative. Whether you’re drawn to the financial savings or the opportunity to be more involved in your child’s day-to-day life, joining or creating a child care co-op can be a rewarding experience.
However, Boshart advises that parents weigh the time and energy requirements before jumping in: “Consider carefully not only if you are able to meet the required responsibilities of joining a co-op, but also if that level of involvement is the right fit for your family,” she says.
And if a child care co-op does feel like the right move for your family, the experts we spoke to recommend jumping in and giving it a try. For Charlesworth, in addition to providing quality child care, joining a child care co-op led to valuable friendships and connections. Founded approximately 50 years ago, Charlesworth adds that “the longevity and vitality of [their] co-op is living proof that a group of caring and committed neighbors can create an organization that meets various needs and functions efficiently.”
