She’ll listen to your problems, sew that button back on and never try to act cool in front of your friends.
Meet Nina Keneally, 63, a Bushwick-based mom of two grown sons who has now begun selling her surplus mothering skills for $40 an hour, plus expenses — but nothing kinky, please — to muddled millennials.
Keneally’s new business, NeedAMom, caters to 20- to 35-year-olds who need a mother, but not their own nagging, guilt-tripping, real-life mom.
She’ll dish out criticism-free advice over coffee, help plan and shop for a dinner party, bake a cake and bring it over, and even buy presents for your actual mother and wrap them for you.
NeedAMom is a shoulder to cry on, not a cleaning service, Keneally stressed on Wednesday.
“Don’t expect me to clean your closet or do your laundry,” she warned, adding in true mom fashion, “I’m not your maid!”
She also won’t be your actual shrink, but she’ll make referrals.
Keneally moved from Connecticut to Brooklyn with her husband two years ago, after some 30 years of raising her own millennial sons, plus stints as a theatrical producer and drug-rehab counselor.
“Connecticut millennials have other goals — it’s all about jobs, houses, permanent relationships,” she said.
“They go into almost a young middle age. Here, it’s a more bohemian, artistic lifestyle.”
And more freedom means more problems.
“I found they’d reach out to me,” she said of the millennials she’d meet in yoga studios and cafes.
Keneally offered advice and a compassionate ear, and realized she could monetize her mothering.
She’s had about six clients so far, all in Bushwick.
“All the friends and people around me are the same age, and shrinks are just kinda impersonal,” Natalie Chan, 34, explained. She pays Keneally $40 for coffee and counseling sessions after their Thursday yoga class each week.
“She doesn’t judge,” Chan added. “She just kinda, like, smiles and says, ‘Stop doing that.’ She’ll never say, ‘You’re stupid.’ ”
Additional reporting by Kate McKee Simmons