When I look back on the last 24 years of motherhood the one thing that still surprises me and troubles me is the babysitter problem.

When I was a teenager, I did a lot of babysitting - my own siblings and a handful of children in my neighborhood. I never stopped to wonder why other families hired me to watch their kids yet my own parents had never hired anyone to watch US, never - not once. What was that all about? Was it lack of money or was it the frustration that comes from trying to find a GOOD babysitter?