Thank you Need a Mom for sponsoring this post.
Just admit it… New York City can be pretty rough, and whether you’re a transplant or a Bushwick born and bred resident, we all could use a mom’s shoulder to cry on at times. However, that is often easier said than done. Your mom can be thousands of miles away or that motherly hug comes with an annoying “I told you so.” In some sad cases moms are not around anymore.
Luckily for us, the distance or your current relationship to your biological mom doesn’t matter because one entrepreneurial mom has decided to offer her “mom services” to Bushwick residents for a reasonable fee.
“I’m not judgemental about anybody’s life choices; I don’t compare them to their brothers and sisters,” told us Nina Keneally, the founder of Need A Mom, who moved to Bushwick two years ago after spending 30 years in Connecticut.
“Before I met my husband, I used to have an apartment in Manhattan and I always longed to come back,” Nina told us. But when the time to move back to New York came, she realized that Manhattan wasn’t fun anymore. One of her sons had moved to Bushwick eight years ago when he was studying at SVA. “I used to visit him in Bushwick; I came for Bushwick Open Studios. I really loved the energy of the neighborhood and its arts community,” Nina explained her unlikely move from the suburbs. “There is a lot to do in Bushwick but not too much. There are very fine restaurants and you can try them all,” she mused.
And so when a family friend told her about a Bushwick brownstone off the Halsey L train stop, she and her husband didn’t hesitate and became full-time Bushwick residents.
“As I started to live in the neighborhood, do yoga and frequent coffee shops, I’ve noticed that a lot of young people in the neighborhood wanted to talk to me about what was going on in their lives,” Nina said. One of her new friends had just recently lost his job and was really bummed about it. Nina suggested they sit down for a cappuccino and talk it through. She ended up polishing his resume and realizing that she can help people figure out what was going on in their lives and do the things a mom would do for them. Not only she is a mom to two sons, Nina has an associate degree in counseling and has worked for many years as a drug and rehabilitation counselor. “I have a therapeutic background, although I’m not a therapist,” she told us. “I can talk you through it but if you have a serious problem, I have a list of resources and can send you to a doctor or a specialist.”
At other points of her life, Nina has been a Tony-winning theater producer; she has worked as an assistant stage manager, an assistant to directors, producers, and press agents.
Nina is ready to provide you with a shoulder to lean on, to iron your shirt or to sew a button on before that big interview. She won’t however do your laundry or organize your closet. She is a mom, not your maid after all! So if you’re lonely Nina will take a walk with you or will come to watch a movie with you and bring popcorn. She will buy presents for your family members if you don’t have time or lack ideas and will even wrap them for you. If you’re sick, Nina can make a pot of chicken soup and bring it to you.
Since Need A Mom is brand new, Nina doesn’t have a fixed price list for her services. “I don’t want to say ‘no’ to anybody but I don’t want to do it totally for free either,” she explained. So a delivery of a pot of chicken soup to your Bushwick home with a warm words of encouragement when you’re sick will cost you around $40. “It really depends on the nature of individual service and how complex it is,” she said.
If Need A Mom is successful in Bushwick, Nina would love to expand it around the city and perhaps work with moms in other cities around the country as well.
If you’re in need of a mom, just not your mom, visit Need A Mom website and fill out the intake form. Nina will contact back you in a jiffy.