The Dater/Sitter Co-op

Parents of young children don’t get many opportunities to go on dates. If we pay for childcare during the day, we aren’t too likely to want to pay again in the evening – especially if you know that all the person will be doing is sitting watching a movie or reading a book while your child sleeps soundly in the other room.

And so I’ve come up with a plan. I call it the Dater/Sitter Co-op. Here’s how it works.
Ideally we would have 6 or 8 families who live in the same neighbourhood and who know and trust each other to be in our homes and look after our children. Contact information would be exchanged among members.

The group would be divided, by couples, into two pools – Daters and Sitters. (Initial division could be random or by first-come-first-serve). The distribution in these pools would be indicated on a website – and updated through member log-in/management.

When any couple in the Dater pool would like an evening out, they can send a request to the people in the Sitter pool. Someone from the Sitter pool who is available and willing to sit will let the Daters know and the details can be worked out between them. Obviously, the assumption will be that Daters will not abuse the system – the idea is that parents can go out for dinner or drinks, not all-night raves.

Once a Dater/Sitter pair has come to an agreement, they switch pools. The Dater couple is now in the Sitter pool, the Sitter couple are now Daters.

An understanding could be that if Daters cancel arranged plans, they still have to switch pools with the Sitter couple – but if the Sitter couple cancels plans, they have to go back to the Sitter pool and the Daters go back to the Dater pool.

The goal of this system is to remove some of the hassle in finding babysitting so as to have the occasional evening out. This would also remove the guilt of asking friends to watch your kids. By asking people in the Sitter pool if they want to sit, you give them an opportunity to move to the Dater pool.

So, anyone interested?