You Can Now Pay a Woman in Bushwick to Be Your Mom
You may be an “adult” but so am I and sometimes I really need a mom. My friends are generous but they did not sign up to listen to the daily minutiae of my life. That’s my mom’s job. Sadly, though, she doesn’t live here. And that’s where NeedAMom—a real-life mom-of-two who recently left Connecticut after more than 30 years to re-settle in Bushwick, listen to your woes, and hem your pants—comes in, apparently.
I was alerted to NeedAMom’s sponsored post on Bushwick Daily via Gothamist, and learned that after real-life mom Nina Keneally left Manhattan with her husband for suburbia, she lamented leaving city life and dreamed of coming back to it one day. [Ed note: Classic mom thing to feel.] Fast-forward to not too long ago, when Keneally visited her sons in Bushwick and heard about a place off the Halsey L to call home, and decided that it was exactly what she and her husband had been waiting for.
Apart from her biological qualifications for NeedAMom—a service Keneally dreams of expanding across the city and country—she also has a background in social services, theater, and PR. Suffice it to say, the woman is not only patient and empathetic but professionally attuned to giving people what they want.
In this case, those things are: All the stuff your mom has given to you historically for free, because they are in fact priceless (i.e. “a shoulder to lean on,” a shirt to iron, or a button to sew on “before that big interview”). But, just like your mom, Keneally’s services have limits, too. She will not organize all the crap in your closet or deal with your dirty clothes, but my mom didn’t either (most of the time).
Still, many traditional mom services—like being taken to the movies when you’re sad—are now things Keneally has converted into a service with a price tag. And, fine. It is one of your many adult prerogatives to pay money for the things you want. In the process, you don’t have to hang out with your real mom, who might judge you, or go through the trouble of making real friends. We can only presume that Keneally’s $40 dollar homemade chicken soup package, “warm words of encouragement included,” is something you will appreciate this time around because, unlike when you were a child, it’s your own damn money on the line.