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Nina is the sort of woman who’d probably apologize for the rain. Warm, wickedly witty and absolutely running on fumes, she’s the type who’ll answer your DMs mid-laundry with a cuppa in one hand and a dog under the other. But don’t let the domestic whirlwind fool you. This woman is igniting conversations most people side-step.
She’s 44, Essex-born and gloriously unfiltered. Mother to four boys, wife, psychotherapist, content creator, disabled advocate and as she described, “knackered.” But scratch beneath the oftentimes tired eyes and tea-stained tops and what you find is someone who clings to hope like a lifeline. And hope, frankly, looks fantastic on her.
She didn’t set out to become a voice for disabled people. No PR plan, no perfectly lit intro reel. Just a mum who also happens to be a wheelchair user, watching her disabled son come home from school, bruised not by playground knocks but by questions too nosy, too constant and far too familiar.
If you’ve seen Nina online, you’ll know she’s anything but beige. Think rainbow hair, trendy glasses, bold prints, sass dialled to eleven, joyful and unmissable. So, when her son started getting hit with the same intrusive rubbish she’d spent a lifetime swallowing, she didn’t whisper back. She painted it in neon and said it louder.
“What happened to you?”
“What’s wrong with you?”
Nina had spent years answering questions like that. Politeness had taught her compliance. Her son, though, cracked that right open. “You don’t have to tell them anything,” she told him. And just like that, everything shifted.
That spark led her to post her first real piece of advocacy online. No hashtag strategy or viral formula. Just truth.
“I tentatively put my first post up on my Instagram page about how I didn’t enjoy answering these intrusive questions that I’d be asked, like, what’s happened to you, what’s wrong with you, etc.,” she said. “After posting, I expected some pushback, but I didn’t get any. Instead, a lot of disabled people found that post and agreed with what I was saying. It confirmed and affirmed everything that I had been feeling and it just went from there.”
And so, the Wheel Housewife of Essex was born! Part kitchen chaos, part fierce mama bear. She used her skills as a counsellor to become a mentor. She turned her frustration into content and slowly, quietly, she became a lighthouse for others trying to navigate similar waters. In this unlikely digital space of comments and likes, Nina discovered something big: she wasn’t the only one.
Her days now are equal parts quiet and bananas. Her husband tackles the dreaded school run while Nina gets the kids out the door. Then it’s onto consultancy, mentoring, content creation, dog walks and a decent splash of mayhem. Somewhere in there, maybe, if the stars align, a kitchen disco.
Parenting four boys from a wheelchair doesn’t faze her, but people do. Especially the ones who think disability means she’s no longer the mum. Or who crack tired jokes like “Don’t get a speeding ticket!” as she rolls by. She’s lived through the slow evolution of parenting on legs, then parenting on wheels. What’s changed? Not her. But how the world sees her, yes. Far too much.
Her boys are growing up in a house where disability is normal. One came home from karate beaming because the building was wheelchair accessible. “You can come next time, Mum!” he shouted. These little moments matter. Normalizing matters. And she loves that the friends who come to play don’t get a TV-style version of disability, they get the real, messy, lovely one.
Asked what she wants people to understand, she cuts straight through: “We’re people.” Shocking, right? Turns out when Nina swapped walking for wheels, people got weird: avoided eye contact, forgot she had jokes and she still fancied a gossip. She didn’t transform into some tragic figure once the chair came out of the boot. She wishes people would just treat her like a human.
When it comes to advice for other disabled parents, she keeps it simple. Your body, your brain, none of it changes your worth as a parent. Kids need love, food, shelter and someone who knows what Paw Patrol episode is playing next. That’s it. Your method of locomotion is irrelevant.
She’s also a big fan of finding your people. Whether that’s through books like We’ve Got This: Essays by Disabled Parents, an anthology she contributed to, or simply finding other disabled parents online, connection matters. Isolation thrives in silence but stories shatter it.
Speaking of stories, Nina shared that her chapter in Owning It: Our disabled childhoods in our own words is a love letter to her son. “He is my biggest inspiration for everything that I write and say about disability.” And yes, she dreams of writing more. Fiction maybe, romance perhaps with disabled characters who kiss, mess up, fall in love and have ordinary extraordinary lives. The kind of books you never see but really should.
What’s next? Something possibly brilliant. Possibly chaotic. Possibly both. There’s a project bubbling under the surface she can’t quite share yet, but eyes peeled, Nina’s not done surprising us.
And if she could leave you with one thought it would be this: inclusivity isn’t just a buzzword. It’s not a logo, it’s people. Real people missing out on something because a space wasn’t accessible or someone didn’t want to make the effort? That’s not just a shame, it’s a loss, for everyone!
Social media gave Nina a mirror. It reflected back a world she’d never seen before, one where disabled people weren’t sidelined, erased or alone. And through that mirror, she started talking loudly, lovingly, fiercely. But be on the lookout. If you stumble across a dancing woman in a kitchen talking disability while the dogs bark and someone screams for a snack, stop and listen. She might just change the way you see everything.
Nina is not the voice of all disabled people. She is just one of many but she’s boldly adding her thread to a wider story that deserves to be heard.