Does Your Job Plus Kids Equal No Time?

What's the most precious commodity of all? If you're a working parent, it's not money, and it's not material possessions. It's time. Nearly all working parents are desperate for more time with their families -- and for more help with the pressures that are a daily part of their lives. To which we say: Spend a little time on the Web.

Don Vickery, 34, systems administrator at Toyo USA Inc., a purchasing firm in Houston, no longer has to worry about whether Nathan, his 22-month-old son, is enjoying his time at day care. He can see it with his own eyes. Vickery uses Watch Me! (www.watch-me.com), a Web service that uses digital feeds from day-care centers to keep parents and children connected, even while they're apart.

This issue of @Work is designed to help you get your life at the office to mesh more smoothly with your life at home. It identifies Web sites that will help you locate a sitter, or figure out what to have for dinner. It describes an online discussion group that lets expectant mothers share concerns and advice with other pregnant women. It even offers a comparison of great sites for your kids to visit -- including one that answers such important questions as "Where does bad breath come from?"

"Where Do I Find Child Care?"

Lots of executives will tell you that there's nothing more challenging than hiring top technical talent. They haven't been looking for nannies. More and more children in the United States are being cared for by nannies or au pairs -- which helps to explain why there are now about 1 million U.S. child-care workers, according to the International Nanny Association. The job of deciding which of those 1 million workers is right for your child makes finding a good C++ programmer look like child's play.

One place to start your search is A NaniNet (www.nannynetwork.com), a robust site that lists hundreds of nanny agencies around the country. What makes searching A NaniNet (which is produced by Home/Work Solutions Inc.) better than leafing through the phone book? For one thing, it lets you customize searches. Do you need a live-in nanny, a full-timer who will live outside your house, or a part-timer? A NaniNet lets you search by this and other criteria. It also lists private investigators who perform background checks on nannies.

If you need a nanny, but you want to avoid agencies -- which often charge big placement fees -- try 4Nannies.com (www.4nannies.com), also from Home/Work Solutions. The site offers a database with information on hundreds of nannies who seek employment, and the service is priced below most other recruiting resources. (As a parent, you pay $189 per month for access to the listings.)

Of course, you may be looking for day care rather than in-home care. CareGuide (www.careguide.net) is a San Francisco-based company that provides detailed listings of more than 76,000 child-care facilities across the country. The site can also help you decide which kind of care is right for you. Anthony Hall, 38, who supervises a call center for BellSouth Entertainment in Atlanta, used the service to find child care for his three-year-old son. "I was able to narrow my search by focusing on part-time child care available within the block of hours when I would be at work," explains Hall, whose work hours are unpredictable.

"What's for Dinner?"

For parents, no question can feel more urgent than "Who's going to care for my kids while I'm at work?" And when parents get home, no question can feel more annoying than "What's for dinner?" After putting in 10 hours at a workstation, few people have the energy -- or the creativity -- needed to stand over a hot stove and prepare a meal.

Believe it or not, the Web offers intriguing solutions to this problem. The Betty Crocker Web site (www.bettycrocker.com) has a "What's on Hand?" feature that will save you time-consuming trips to the store. It provides lists of basic ingredients -- Swiss cheese, spaghetti sauce, asparagus, ham -- and prompts you to check boxes next to the items that you know you have. Then it provides links to recipes that match the greatest number of "on hand" ingredients. Talk about fast food! You can log on from work in the afternoon, find a recipe for a meal that your kids will like and that uses items already in your pantry, print out the recipe, and cook the meal when you get home.