Mummy Concierge

 A poet, a linguist and a marketing guru join forces to come up with the name of an unborn child. The start of a bad joke? The plotline for the next episode of Black Mirror? Neither - rather, it's one of the jobs a "mummy concierge" to the super-rich can be asked to do.

Baby-proofing a yacht to ensure the plugs fit a breast pump, finding the best potty-training expert in town and reminding prospective mums to pack their facial mist in their overnight bag are just some of the other tasks Tiffany Norris has put in her diary of late.

Mrs Elizabeth Young Mitchell and her Baby
Alfred George Stevens (1817-1875)
Photo Credit: Tate CC [BY-NC-ND]

Essentially an assistant to very wealthy women before and after they give birth, Norris shines a light on the new extremes taken by parents who are willing to pay her fees which start at £275 an hour.

Everything from sourcing a bespoke £5000 nightdress to wear while giving birth, to packing an overnight bag for the suite in a private hospital, to surrounding their bed with pictures from home, has been asked of the mother of four who lives in the Cotswolds.

"Lots of clients are high-powered career women who need guidance. They have fully staffed households and the 'mummy concierge' is just like another member of staff," says Norris... "I do the first year ... They may need advice on how to get a child into a private school in London, or help to find a potty-training expert... A lot of my clients have holiday homes, or private yachts. I was once flown to. Dubai to help babyproof a yacht, checking the plug sockets can manage a UK plug to ensure a breast pump worked. Also making sure the stair gates were stable enough for a bouncy ocean"...

An initial one-hour consultation on the phone is £275 and then the price after that varies depending on what she is asked to do ... She dismisses the idea that the huge amounts spent are a waste of money, saying that wealthy people simply want the best for their child.

Norris is often asked about names. "I had one adamant client who wanted a unique name. We set up a thinktank with a linguist, a marketing expert, a branding expert and a poet and sat around brainstorming. The couple were American and had high expectations of what they wanted their child to be. It was like branding your baby, they wanted to make sure their child had a head start in life.

In the end, they came up with a shortlist of 17 and narrowed down from there. "The whole process took around two months," she says.

(Sarah Marsh, The Observer, 2024)

A fool and his money are soon parted. Surely they can't believe that a child's name somehow gives them a head start in life?  Can I add another for the shortlist? How about Joe Bloggs? Boy or girl.