The University for whom I work recently added to their benefits a free membership to Sittercity. The U tries to offer ways to get backup childcare whenever possible, and gets discounts for faculty, staff, and I guess students who need to send their kids to daycare or the Y preschool.

So I had to check out Sittercity, since I'd been too scared cheap lazy to do it before. I created my profile, posted a "babysitters wanted" ad, and forgot about it.

Two weeks later, I have 47 people begging to take care of my kids. The responses range from:

HI WANT TO BABYSEAT FOR YOU CALL ME

to full-blown cover letters with organized paragraphs and kiss-ass bullshit language about how fulfilling childcare is. So the question is twofold, I guess. (1) How do you pick a babysitter this way, and (2) is it too weird/creepy to pick a babysitter this way?

Oh, and what do you do when your mom's neighbor's daughter says she saw your ad on Sittercity and she wants to take care of your kids? Especially if said daughter is nice and all, but really kind of flaky and weird and forgets her housekeys almost every single day?

I carefully chose a few people and sent messages asking to meet them, so we'll see what comes back. I'm thinking of meeting them with at least one kid in tow in a public place; a coffeehouse or park or something. Do you line these up, and have them wait at the picnic bench until you're free to talk while pushing kids on the swings? Do you have a list of questions? Do you try to trip them up with disciplinary response questions? "What would you do if, for example, a child in your care set fire to your laptop?"

I feel kind of weird doing this. Even weirder was my response to the one male who wrote me. He looks like a clean-cut guy. He is a college student at another school, and helps coach basketball at a Chicago elementary school (one I've heard of, so I could check that out). But something kept me from contacting him.

What's up with that? Is it that we only trust women to babysit, and what kind of feminist am I if that's true? Is it that I am suspicious of any guy who would willingly spend lots of time around other peoples' young kids? What makes a male college student who likes kids any different than a female college student who likes kids? (And yes, smartass, I know -- chromosomes and genitalia, yada yada yada.)

This kind of reminds me of doing the nanny search, and guiltily but automatically denying response to anyone under the age of 45. While we're being honest here, I admit I did not contact a few babysitters who looked just fine in terms of references a nd specs, but were just too darned attractive to have in my house. Hey, we all saw that movie. Rebecca DeMornay is coming over.... and she WANTS YOUR FAMILY?

Of course, there are days I'd gladly hand most of them over (several hours of today were like that). But I'd rather just find a few nice, plain people women (fuck it) to watch my rugrats so DH and I can see "The Simpsons" before it leaves the theaters.