18 Spring 2017 mattersmagazine.com 19 M Most new parents have heard the rueful prediction that they will not leave the house alone again for more than a decade without planning and forethought. An exaggeration, perhaps, but it can certainly be stressful to find a person you trust to care for your children while you are out. You may not live close to relatives, and while friends are helpful, they are not always available when you need them. And the teenager your kids love eventually moves on to college, leaving your family without a sitter. But no need to despair. Now there’s Sitterfied, a social networking service for parents and babysitters. It’s the brainchild of Dana and Andy Lewisohn and their friends Elana and James Nanscawen, who came up with the idea five years ago when the two couples were living in the same apartment building in Hoboken with babies on the way. Both couples now live in Maplewood, so they’ve also started up the program here and in South Orange. “Sitterfied is a way to find sitters that is friend-verified and search- simplified,” says James. It’s also free. It may sound too good to be true, but this elegant solution requires only an hour’s investment of time for parents and sitters alike. On a chilly evening in February, Andy and James set up at Work and Play in South Orange. Maplewood residents Adrienne and Drew Moerlein arrive, confessing that “we flew my mom from Texas to watch our five-month-old so we could come here tonight.” In an effort to find someone local, they are here to connect with sitters. Other parents and Babysitting: a Modern Solution Guess what? It’s an app. BY ADRIANNA DONAT PHOTOS BY JULIA MALOOF VERDEROSA sitters stream in and mingle for a few minutes while Andy explains the process. The event is organized like speed dating. Each parent/ sitter matchup gets two minutes to talk. When time is up, the lines of parents and sitters shift and the new groups meet. Parents download an app on their smartphones to help them keep track. They pull up a photo of the sitter they are interviewing and can either add the sitter to their “team” or not. Once the interviews are complete, most parents come away with several sitters with whom they’re comfortable. When they need a sitter, they send a message out to the team and the first sitter to respond gets the job. But what happens on those nights when everyone in town needs a sitter and your team is busy? You can network to find a sitter on one of your friends’ teams. As one mom puts it, “I trust my friend, and I know she’s pretty particular. So if she likes a sitter, I probably will, too.” Sitterfied simplifies things for sitters as well. Says sought- after sitter and Seton Hall student Macarena Solis, “I like to choose my jobs and my schedule. Sitterfied makes it easy for me. After each Sitterfied event, I get five to ten requests.” Sitters and parents sign in and don nametags in preparation for meeting one another. MAGGIE AXELROD-CALISTER Hours: Mon.-Weds. 10–6pm • Thurs-Sat. 10–8pm • Sunday 12–4pm 973.313.2722 • thetenthmusegallery.com • 170 Maplewood Avenue JUDITH NEUGEBAUER TRUNK SHOW MAY 5th and 6th photograph by Miana Jun