I Need a Village

My nanny woes continue. I know it sounds grossly elitist to whine about nanny problems. And that's why I resist publicly drawing attention to my perpetual problem of hiring a decent and reasonably priced nanny. But I've decided to out myself because maybe someone out there in cyberspace can help me. I admit that my bar for childcare has dropped to an embarrassing all time low -- bordering on the irresponsible. But my minimal requirements are rather straight forward -- if you have a valid driver's license, no criminal record and don't mind reading "Dora the Explorer" books 10,000 times a day, you're hired!

For several months as my part-time sitters have called in sick, simply failed to show, or suddenly quit, I've struggled to get to meetings, join conference calls, produce stories and travel to promote my book while also squeezing in carpool, karate and soccer for my kids. Last month when I left for a business trip, I cobbled together a schedule of three babysitters to consecutively piggyback over a 48-hour period. That, of course, was not only expensive but stressful, not just for me but for my kids. (My husband did come home in between sitter #2 and #3.)

So today, after nearly spraining my ankle tripping over my son's Buzz Lightyear amidst the clutter that is his playroom and in between the 200 loads of laundry I swear I did, I channeled Lynette from Desperate Housewives (before she went back to work and wore suits again) and had an epiphany. This is not just my problem, it's the problem of virtually all moms out there. Sisters we need help and we must unite! We know it takes a village to raise our children, Hillary Clinton told us so. But if the village has only one resident (as mine does for the better part of Monday thru Friday) then we need to recruit some more people to work in our village -- at a reasonable cost.

Last weekend I was speaking at a conference for women and on my panel another author of motherhood books confided in me that she was completely losing it because she also had no childcare. She told me that between 9 am and 3 pm when her kids were in school, she frantically tried to get all of her work done. After 3 pm she was a stress case because she still had tons more to do and simply couldn't get it finished because she didn't have an affordable babysitter.

So here we were, two motherhood "experts" who lacked the essential help we needed to be both happy moms and productive career women. Why is it so hard? Because it's so ridiculously expensive. In New Jersey where I live, the going rate for a full time nanny who drives averages $550-$600 per week. So unless you're making a lot of coin it's hard to foot the bill for the cost of a capable sitter. This is why so many women don't work. It's not because they don't want a career but unless they are taking home a huge salary it often makes no financial sense to have a real job. In fact, many families realize it often costs too much for both parents to work.

I'm not an economist and I'm not a politician, I'm just a mother who is trying to nurture a career, raise two children and supply my family with clean underwear. Is that too much to ask?