Another person asked me today how we started this babysitting co-op.
When I think about our co-op, I don’t often think about its beginnings. Instead I think of the results and the way it has changed my life; the way it’s changed a lot of peoples’ lives here in our little corner of the city. I think about the amazing, supportive community we all are a part of now.
This community has, at times, given me the will to live. Having two toddlers at home with me all day, every day, has worn down my optimism and sent me into varied states of depression. And when I felt so low, my fellow co-opers rallied. They came over, they called me, they took me outside, they took my kids. They did what friends do.
While some of us are indeed very close friends, the co-op feels more complicated than that. I think most peoples’ image of “a group of friends” was formed in Jr. High and it never really matured. It’s much more difficult to make friends as an adult for reasons of convenience. How many adults have newly acquired, really close friends? And, are you ready for this: How many adults in LA have any close friends in their own neighborhood? One of the most astounding things about our co-op is we all live within a 2 mile radius, which makes getting together much less of a hassle.
Lately I’ve been doing something with co-op families almost every day of the week. Usually it’s a quick trip to a park, or a visit to deliver some needed household supplies. Every Friday evening we have a full-blown party which Nancy has dubbed a Wine and Whine. The kids play, whine, and inevitably get naked (or at least they did when they were 1 and 2 years old). The adults sit around and talk, drink wine, laugh, and sometimes cry. We love each other. We love each others' kids. We watch each others' kids all the time. These kids may all live across the country from their cousins (as many Angeleno kids do) but they see their co-op cousins nearly every day.
Explaining the co-op this way can help you understand why people who come across our group in public ask, “How did this happen? You guys are running around acting like this is a small town. This is LA. People don’t have communities like this in LA. Do they?”
We are a group of people living in one of the most disconnected cities in the world, where people rarely look past their windshield to see who is driving around them, and we have made a connection, lots of little connections. We are like those magnet toys which have replaced tinker toys. They just keep connecting together to form a big amorphous blob.
Maybe we should change our name to the Babysitting Blob.
Our babysitting blob mimics the community feeling of a church without all of that pesky guilt. We have the pride and team spirit of a sport, without the push-ups. We have the familiarity of a small town with the cultural benefits of a huge city. And it could only happen --just this way-- in a low-income neighborhood of a major city. In our case, Highland Park, Los Angeles.
Very few people in Highland Park can afford in-home care for their kids. Many new residents of HLP are artistically inclined, read “broke." So, even paying for a babysitter feels like a luxury. We have a main street, but there is no Starbucks, no Panda Express, no Target or any other chain stores you’d find in slightly wealthier areas. Instead we have locally owned, run down mom and pop shops like Lupita's Party Rentals filled with very inexpensive party and art supplies. The store has a mural on the side with rudimentary paintings of Dora the Explorer and Elmo. The likenesses aren’t well done and the effect is honestly very creepy. There are about twenty-five variations of a Dollar Store, two awesome dive bars, a scary-looking pool hall, a little, janky pizzeria, and a bank. There’s also Anna's Bakery with cracked linoleum tiles which are meant to look like fake marble, where you can buy fresh conchas and other pastries I had never eaten until I moved to LA. The most note-worthy thing available for purchase here in Highland Park is Mexican food. Jonathon Gold, the pulitzer-prize winning food critic in LA, reports that an educated consumer can sample every regional cuisine in Mexico without leaving the HLP city limits. Not just for the taco trucks and El Hurache Azteca am I in love with this neighborhood. It’s because of my co-op community. I wonder, if it weren't for the co-op, would the gang violence and the smog bum me out more than it does? I will never know the answer, because in my mind at least, Highland Park is the co-op.
Nearly four years ago, faced with no money, a seven month old, and another baby on the way, my husband’s mother told us about a babysitting co-op her friends belonged to back in the 70s. We came home and googled the term, determined to give it a try. I read a few blog posts and wrote up the universal rules among the explanations I found. Then we started telling people in the neighborhood we were starting a co-op.
“Letting some people know” was the most tedious part. Talking to your neighbors is awkward, but talking to other parents less so. Jeff and I are both very friendly and not afraid of strangers. I am a military brat who moved every three years and has been making new friends my entire life -- no exaggeration. My achilles heel is I assume the best and accept people too quickly into my inner circle. That’s where my husband comes in. Jeff is exceptionally discerning and can recognize a wonderful, kind soul after only a few minutes. When I do listen to him, Jeff is my perfect accomplice. Between the two of us we met (some might say accosted) every young, expectant family in our neighborhood. We found them at the grocery store, at the parks, on walks, at art events. These poor, unsuspecting, lonely people had no idea we would be changing their life (cue evil laughter!)
One of our moms, Nancy, said, "The co-op has made me see other parents differently. Where before I would be secretly judging their parenting and wondering if they were judging my parenting, now I see them and think, 'Maybe they are gonna be in our co-op!'"
Parents are prone to doubting every decision and feeling vulnerable to criticism and embarrassment. Those feelings don’t ever fully dissipate. But realizing other parents are feeling the same things, and then coming to bond with them about these insecurities is helpful. Anyway it’s better than lamenting the ways parenting, like high school, brings up a whole new list of Things People are Judging Me For.
Talking honestly with my parenting peers has eased my worry and helped me realize I am doing a good enough job --probably a great job!-- and so are other parents. We all have our distinct personalities and can learn something from each other’s style.
The promise of free child care lured in all of our co-op members. Most of us had no idea how to go about finding a babysitter in a neighborhood where we have no ready-made connections. If we were in our home towns, we might have our parents and families to help us, or we would know a friend with a high school kid who wants to work a side gig. But in our new city, we knew no one. Not to mention the idea of leaving a precious, new baby with a strange babysitter was a bit unnerving.
As a month turned into a year and we amassed more families into the co-op, I became frustrated because these and other helicopter-parenting fears were keeping us from doing any actual babysitting! Our community was a much needed support group for new parents long before it was a babysitting co-op because no one had the nerve to ask anyone to sit, or to be a sitter. But, when Jeff and I had our second baby, I was knee deep in diapers and knew I needed a break!
People make up lots of reasons about why they shouldn't need a babysitter; how they can do it themselves and don’t really need a break. Another important parent paradigm shift happens the first time you go out on a limb, take your baby to a friend's home, and then leave them there. Alone. You just drive away in your car. It is surreal.
Right after you get done crying those tears of panic and utter joy at the same time, you realize that you can use a babysitter, for your own sanity and for your children's well-being, not to mention their well-roundedness. Imagine how adaptable the children raised by a co-op village will be!
Exposing your child to other parenting methods so early in their development, can strike some serious fear into the heart of a control freak. (I should know!) But those of us who love control are also the type of parents who earnestly need a respite from the chaos of really young children. Taking little breaks from my kids every day made me a better mom.
After I got some people to take my babies for a few hours, the sitting started happening regularly which helped our support group evolve into something like a big band of cousins. Our little extended family has been around for many years now. We’ve done group camping trips, had 40th birthday karaoke parties, caroling parties at Christmastime. I called Peter and DD when my dad had a heart-attack. John and Julia called us to come sit with their sleeping babies when they had to go to the ER. Jody was in the room when Kathleen gave birth to her second baby. We have cooked each other countless meals, played infinite games of tag and soccer, and chase.
These days my kids practically jump out the window of our car before I can even park in front of their friend's (aka the babysitter’s) house. They squeal out loud, so elated to be able to play with someone else!
Whatever benefits our 30+ kids are getting from being in this co-op, the parents are equally lucky. The need for support, listening ears, hugging arms, and people who also love our children is colossal. We had no idea at its inception that our band of babysitters would turn out to be so fundamental to our parenting experience: our armor against the adult world, our life raft in the crazy sea of raising small children, and our support for all the trials and hard questions life keeps throwing at us. These people aren’t our friends or our neighbors, they are our true, chosen family. And like a biological family, there is an origin story -- a beginning thread. But it’s never as beautiful as the tapestry woven together by days and days, nights and nights of shared experiences and emotions. Our village, our co-op, may grow apart and change in drastic ways as the babies grow up and the families move away. But we will always have the love and support which is forging us through this most harrowing time of learning how to be parents.
Dedicated to my HPBSCO parents and all of our 18 yo babies graduating from high school this month. Send me some pictures! <3
Love, Ms. Nonni