RENT-A-MUM TO THE RESCUE!

Meet the woman you can turn to for motherly advice when your own is not to hand

I’D LIKE TO make one thing absolutely clear from the start: I love my mum. And I’m not looking to replace her. In fact, at the time of writing, I’ve just returned from a fortnight’s holiday with my parents, and I didn’t argue with Mum once. There were the usual slight differences of opinion over my lifestyle, of course – but she’s right, I probably do drink too much and don’t sleep enough.

The point is, I have an excellent relationship with my mother: warm, close, open and honest – up to an appropriate point. The only problem is that my parents live in a small village in Derbyshire, while I’m based in Brooklyn, New York, five time zones and more than 3,000 miles away. And despite the fact I left home 20 years ago, there are still plenty of moments – usually when I’m tired or trying to make a decent cheese sauce – when only a mum will really do.

In New York City, happily, every possible problem gives rise to an entrepreneurial paid-for service. Can’t fit your giant sofa into your tiny apartment? Call the Sofadoctors. No idea how to put your new kitchen island together? Pay a Taskrabbit to pop over and assemble it. And now, if your own mother is not close to hand, you can hire someone else’s.

Nina Keneally, a 63-year- old mother of two, set up Need-a-Mom (needamomnyc.com) last autumn to offer: ‘A motherly ear, but without the baggage; empathy without judgment, tea and sympathy without a side order of familial guilt. Even the best parents and children have baggage,’ says Nina. ‘And that’s appropriate – you have history with them. But with me, you can check in the baggage.’

Nina had long been acting as wise counsel in a more casual way to younger people she met at her yoga class, or through her own sons, Zeb, 31, and Eli, 27.

‘The idea of turning it into a business began as a joke,’ she recalls. ‘But then everyone seemed to think it was such a good idea that I decided to take it seriously.’

For $40 (£28) an hour, 20- and 30-somethings can hire Nina to stand in as a surrogate mother, performing myriad emotional and practical tasks. She will offer a listening ear on your challenges in work, life and love, help you clear out your cluttered wardrobe and show you the best way to roast a chicken. She won’t, however, walk your dog, or do your laundry. ‘That’s what cleaning and laundry services are for,’ she rightly points out.

I meet Nina at the spacious brownstone townhouse she shares with her husband Ken, a stagehand on Broadway, and Keaton, their friendly, crumple-faced shar pei, in Bushwick, a creative but not-yet-gentrified area of Brooklyn. The couple moved back to the city two years ago after more than three decades in suburban Connecticut. Nina likes the multicultural aspect of Bushwick, where she is surrounded by the young people she’s set up her business to help. ‘I figured, that’s my demographic, and if I didn’t have any success, I could just cut my losses and tell everybody it was a conceptual art project,’ she laughs.

However, after placing an advert in the local

Nobody ever tells you how hard being a grown-up is going to be

newspaper, she was greeted by a ‘tsunami of interest’. And not just from potential clients. So deeply has the concept of her service resonated, she has been contacted by various major chat shows in the US, and during our afternoon together she excuses herself for 20 minutes to take a phone call from a production company keen to turn Need-a-Mom into a reality television show.

Trim and groomed, with a neat bob and a sizable collection of colourful scarves, Nina possesses a certain youthful essence. Sitting in her sunny back garden, she invokes Jung and Freud, but just as easily chats about our mutual favourite new television show, Transparent. She has clearly tapped into popular culture, but not in a way that feels forced or false – she’s not trying to be cool. And she also seems eminently sensible. While she radiates sympathy, I can’t imagine she’d be too tolerant of sloth or self-indulgence.

Of course, there’s no shortage of psychological and emotional support available in New York, from more conventional counselling and therapy, to life coaching and mentoring. So what makes Nina’s service unique?

‘It’s a different kind of empathy and understanding,’ she says. ‘I can disclose certain things about myself. If they say, “I’m having a tough time with my mum,” I can say, “Yes, when I was 20-something, I had a really tough time with my mum, too.” A therapist can’t say that as they have to be impartial.’

‘But I think both clinically and personally, I have pretty good boundaries,’ she adds. ‘I know some people who say, “My mother is my best friend,” or, “My daughter is my best friend.” I don’t think a parent should be their child’s best friend. And, in this role, I shouldn’t either. I should be like their mother, in a supportive and friendly way,’ she says firmly.

While she’s not trying to be her clients’ friend, nor is she in the habit of telling them what they should do. ‘I try to help people work things out for themselves by thinking about the consequences. I ask them, “What would happen if you tried such-and-such?” It’s about them taking ownership.’

One young woman she is ‘mothering’ has recently come out of a relationship in which there was a lot of emotional abuse. ‘She says friends tell her she should get professional help but she doesn’t want to right now,’ says Nina. ‘I have found a domestic violence support group near her, which I thought might be beneficial. I’m a good resource person. If you need legal advice, or access to a good doctor – which can be hard in New York – I’m good at navigating those shoals.’

The mother of another of her current clients actually contacted Nina herself. ‘Her daughter had just had neck surgery, and her mother had been looking after her, but had to go back to California. She wanted someone to pop in and check on her regularly,’ she says.

One prospective client has requested Nina coach them through preparing for a dinner party, while another simply wants Nina to sit on her bed and talk to her while she clears out her wardrobe. ‘Her mother would be happy to fly from Florida to do it, but she feels she’ll get it done more quickly if her real mum isn’t there saying: “Oh, remember, you wore that to Sally’s bat mitzvah…”’

So far, around 80 per cent of Nina’s clients have been women. ‘I think women might feel more inclined to want to talk to someone with a maternal presence, perhaps, than guys,’ she muses. Some, she says, are young women who don’t have a great relationship with their own mother, or are going through a rough patch with her, while others have parents who are understanding, but find it hard to comprehend their offspring’s lifestyle.

‘They may never have lived in a big city,’ she says. ‘And the realities of their children’s lives can be hard for them to relate to.’ Indeed, one discussion with my parents during our holiday concerned the enormous amount of money I ‘waste’ on rent – an unfortunate reality of living in New York or

A parent should not be a child’s best friend, so I’m not – I’m like their mother

London. ‘I understand what it’s like because I live here, and my own children are here,’ says Nina.

Nina moved to New York from Philadelphia aged 21 to study drama, and worked briefly as an actress, before spending more than 35 years as a theatre producer on Broadway. She eventually retrained as a drug and alcohol counsellor, and spent a decade working in a Connecticut clinic for heroin addicts. While her years as a counsellor have undoubtedly contributed to her calm, compassionate, nonjudgmental manner, a lifetime in the liberal, bohemian world of theatre has likely helped, too. ‘I’m very relaxed and open-minded about lifestyle choices,’ she nods.

Is there anything that she’s not comfortable talking about, I wonder. Her clients’ sex lives, for example? ‘Oh, I don’t mind talking about sex at all,’ she declares. In fact, she recently took part in a podcast in which she addressed questions from listeners on topics such as whether it’s OK to have sex on a first date. The answer: yes, absolutely. ‘The only thing I would say is don’t if you are too drunk, though, because that might lead to regret in the morning,’ she advises. ‘Make it a conscious choice, not just a stumbling-drunk-into-bed choice.’

While I don’t feel the need to seek advice on sexual matters, I have had a pretty tumultuous time in my personal life of late. I recently broke up with someone I was head-over-heels in love with, but who was, sadly, not a practical long-term prospect. When I meet Nina, I am still licking my wounds, and weeping over my friends; I feel that she might have some helpful maternal input for me.

I ended things, I tell her, as a pre-emptive move to avoid further, future hurt, but we are still talking, intensely, almost every day, which is not helping me to move on. I’m hopelessly addicted to our closeness and communication.

Nina listens intently, nodding sympathetically, and does not order me to go cold turkey on the communication. ‘Set some strict times that you can be in touch,’ she suggests, ‘so that you both know there’s still a connection, but you’re also starting to put a little bit of time and distance between you and the relationship. That’s the only way you’re going to get some perspective,’ she observes, after I’ve talked about the ongoing, enormously distracting emotional upheavals of the situation. ‘It’s definitely getting in the way of you moving on,’ she agrees.

We take a stroll from Nina’s house to a nearby coffee shop; like a scene straight out of Girls, it’s littered with hipsters working on their laptops, while a band noisily rehearses in a back room. With ever-increasing numbers of young people like myself carving out non-traditional careers, in individual, entrepreneurial, self- employed roles, I suspect that perhaps we need independent motherly mentors like Nina more than ever. As a self- employed writer, working for British editors with an ocean between us, I certainly miss the mentoring aspect of working alongside others.

I tell Nina about my appalling lack of work-life balance. I love what I do, and am enormously grateful for the opportunities I am afforded, but there’s such a lot of it. I often end up working seven days a week, sometimes sleeping for just five hours a night, and constantly cancelling social plans. The week I meet Nina, I’ve had to bail on two dates in order to take on last-minute jobs. I bemoan the fact that I’ll never move on from my former flame when I can’t even commit to a drink with a new man on a Wednesday night.

‘Is there some way you can carve out a small piece of time for yourself that’s sacred?’ she asks. ‘A class that you do once a week, maybe? I think it would help you feel as though you had control over some part of your life, and that would help you feel more empowered about your work, too.’

I confess that I feel ungrateful for whining about being too busy, especially as a self-employed writer. ‘I think that’s a female thing, and a very common problem for your generation,’ she notes. ‘But in my generation, too, good girls were brought up to always say yes.’ It’s true that no has never been a word in my vocabulary. ‘It’s important to recognise that that’s not always a good thing,’ says Nina. ‘It actually saps your power to always say yes.’

Sitting on a bench outside the café, sipping on cappuccinos, I wonder what previous generations would make of this modern need for outside intervention of the sort that Nina is offering. Are we Generation X-ers and Millennials so cossetted and soft that we need extra, external support, in the same way that we can’t buy property without generous loans for deposits from our parents?

‘A little,’ Nina concedes. ‘But not as much as the clichéd, stereotypical view of this generation suggests. Most young people I meet are hardworking and ambitious. They just don’t have to grow up so fast.’

Nina also believes she and her parental peers should take some of the responsibility, too. ‘We were, to a degree, the first helicopter parents, pushing our children to get into a good college, which we considered far more important than teaching them how to iron their shirts,’ she says. ‘So I think coming down too hard on them for that is a mistake, and quite unfair.

‘And it’s tough,’ she says, as she gives me a warm goodbye hug. ‘There’s no two ways about it. Nobody ever tells you how hard it is going to be to be a grown-up.’

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