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As a mom to two children under the age of five, Jersey City parent Esther Tan says she has often been stymied when it comes to figuring out kid-friendly things to do.

“I found it really hard to search for kiddie events in the area,” she says. “I would go through a myriad of websites each week, busily copying details from each of them into my calendar or printing a whole bunch of papers with different events.”

Now the 35-year-old Tan is working to corral all of that information into one place, with the new website and e-newsletter Macaroni Kid Jersey City. The website is part of a national chain that grew out of a Hamptons-based site launched in 2008; there are currently Macaroni Kid sites in more than 150 markets nationwide, according to founder and CEO Joyce Shulman.

The site, Tan says, “does the hard work of collating the best kids events in the area.” The parent company also provides all the local publishers with suggested content and special deals that work anywhere in the nation, such as the 50 percent off coupon for Pixable photo books currently on the Jersey City site. The local “Publisher Mom,” as the site proprietors are dubbed, gets the final say on what she wants to publish.

Many of the Publisher Moms have left the workforce to have a child, and may be, in the words of Shulman, “suffer[ing] from a loss of identity” related to work. But Tan — who has a 4-year-old girl and 2-year-old boy — breaks that mold; she works full-time developing public health and infectious disease policies at the United Nations. Pointing out that being a mom and a homemaker is, in essence, another full-time job, Tan says that “with Macaroni Kid Jersey City, I’m adding a third little job, though it’s really more like a hobby.”

Though this sounds like a recipe for burnout, Tan says she thrives on the busyness.

“Like many moms I know, I love multi-tasking, having a full plate and juggling it all. It somehow makes me feel more alive,” she says. “I also like the thought of giving back and contributing to our community with our strengths.”

Local publishers like Tan pay the parent company what Shulman describes as a “modest monthly hosting fee” (a November story put the exact figure at $59 a month, though Shulman says the rate varies “based on several factors”). From there, advertising can be sold locally by the Publisher Mom, and the parent company also places ads across the entire network. Both Tan and Shulman say they won’t divulge all the financial details, but Tan says “it’s a very fair split for all of us.”

Tan says that for now, Macaroni Kid Jersey City will focus on posting events but not editorial content. However, she says she hopes to expand what the site offers in the future, and perhaps also branch out to offline activities, like parenting workshops or mom get-togethers.

She says that either way, she wants the website to not only provide a service to parents, but “build and support community life and local businesses” in Jersey City.

“Despite its reputation, Jersey City is a wonderfully multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, exciting and vibrant city, and my husband and I fully believe in its potential for growth,” Tan says. “I believe that Macaroni Kid can be just one of many tools to bring people together in this city.”