Beth Davis's search for 'a good man' for her daughter, Molly, has gone global. Photo / Supplied
Beth and Molly Davis are a mother-daughter duo whose special bond is immediately clear.
Speaking to the Herald on a three-way call from Boston, they finish each other's sentences and reminisce about their "best day ever": a trip to the Bay of Islands where they got tattoos together. They've followed each other from the US to New Zealand and back again. As far as mothers and daughters go, theirs is a relationship closer than most.
But Beth, 61, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Before she passes, she's done something a little unusual in an attempt to help her daughter, 30, find "a good man to love".
Right now, in the middle of Times Square in New York, Molly's face is plastered to a giant billboard with the caption: "Date my daughter".
"A year ago, I found out that breast cancer had extensively spread to my bones. I'm now on a mission to find a good man for my daughter to love … I want to know I'm leaving her in good hands," says Beth, 61, who with husband Rick first moved to New Zealand from the states in the 90s, when Molly was just a baby.
Molly attended Mairangi Bay School on Auckland's North Shore before the family went back to the US. "But my first memories are in New Zealand and I always wanted to come back," says Molly, who returned in 2013.
When her parents eventually moved back too, Molly stayed to train as a teacher and got a job at Long Bay College - a job she says she "loved so so much" and was clearly very good at: Beth notes her daughter was nominated for "Teacher of the Year". A point to which Molly can be heard saying, "Aw Mum, quit bragging about me."
The family lived in Torbay on the North Shore and on Waiheke Island - two places Beth describes as "heaven" - until recently. After Molly decided to move to New York, Beth visited last October and ended up staying too.
Speaking from her cottage on the coast south of Boston, Beth shares that she is looking out at ice in the ocean and "everything is grey". She tells the Herald she misses the "green grass and blue skies of New Zealand".
"Torbay and Waiheke were both idyllic places and really hard to leave," says Beth. "But you kind of figure out if you're in paradise and you don't have - I didn't have Molly and my mum and sisters and brothers. So when we got here to visit, and with my health situation, we just had to re-evaluate our priorities. We made the decision that we needed to say goodbye to Waiheke. So we sold it, without even going back to pack up. Our neighbours did it for us."
So as Molly and Beth found themselves back in the US and coming to terms with Beth's illness, a Thanksgiving holiday provided an opportunity for the mother to broach something with her daughter.
"Mum is, you know, wanting to help find me a partner and asked me if she could sign me up for a dating app," explains Molly. "I said, 'Sure, Mum, how 'bout it?'
"It's so nice. She recognises how busy I am with work and trying to prioritise friends and family is really important to me," says Molly, who since returning to the US has traded in teaching for medical device sales. "She found this dating app, Wingman. It's mostly that you and a friend would make a profile and kind of endorse each other.
"It's more like an old-fashioned fix-up," adds Beth. "That's what appealed to me. I got to speak from the heart in a paragraph about Molly. And I just said, 'Hey Molly, is it alright if I say this?"
When Molly tells her mother she didn't actually see what she wrote, Beth pipes up: "Molly is a ray of sunshine, she wakes up chirpy..."
"Aw, Mum," says Molly before recalling the pair giggling over Beth's first attempt to set up a profile.
"You said, 'I'm Beth, I'm 61. I'm looking for, oh, a man in his 30s'. And Dad said, 'Good luck, Honey.' Then you said, 'Oh, wait. I'm not making a profile for myself', and you had to go back. And you changed your name to Molly's Mum."
"Molly's Mum" caught the attention of Wingman's CEO, Tina Wilson, who approached the pair about sharing Molly's profile on a giant billboard in Times Square.
"We were a bit different," says Beth. "She initially thought we were cat-fishing. She thought, this story is so cute. But it's probably not even true. She was nervous that we weren't genuine. But she wrote us a nice letter and said, 'Listen, I want to talk to you but I'm flying to Dubai. I'll talk to you after that.' Then she said, 'When I get back from London, I'm going to call you.
"I kept saying to Molly, 'This is a pretty elaborate prank. Who is pranking us? No one wants to put us on a billboard. That's crazy.' We didn't believe it. So, we weren't telling anyone because we thought it might not be real."
As luck would have it, Molly happened to be with her mum when Wilson made her first phone call to Beth. "We were kind of giggling, like, 'Oh, she's real,'" Molly recalls.
While they were excited to realise the billboard was actually happening, there was "a wobble. And it was quite a big wobble," says Beth before Molly continues:
"Mum and Tina were putting it together and chose the picture and they sent it to me and it was just a bit of a strong message: 'Date my daughter.' I was like, 'Oh!'"
"She had a bit of a wobble," says Beth. "Like, 'This is intense. I don't know if I can do it'."
But after talking to Wilson, Molly was on board: "It's a snapshot," she explains. "As people walk by, it's supposed to grab your attention."
And it's certainly achieved that. Amid the scores of people writing in - mums, some with breast cancer too, dads, potential suitors - they've had calls from CNN, NBC, New York Post, and inquiries from Italy and Russia.
"A lot of people have written in to be supportive," says Beth. "Honestly, I haven't seen anything that's not. Some people said, 'Wow. When I first heard about this I thought, meddling mother. But then when I saw her reason …"
"Well, it is meddling, Mum," says Molly.
"It is meddling," agrees Beth. "Yes. Yes, it is a bit ... but it's also an adventure. We see it as just one of our many adventures. We are two adventuring girls. The things we've done together, all around New Zealand, are just our favourite parts of our lives, right Mols?"
Beth says she also went ahead with it because "I really feel this generation of young people have had their dating norms derailed, thrown out the window around Covid. So they weren't able to just get out and meet people. I read that some young people are spending up to 10 hours a week on dating apps. I want other parents to help, be a young person's wingman. You don't have to use an app, necessarily. But do tell others about your lovely son or daughter. Keep yourself open to those sorts of connections."
As much as Beth was up for fixing up her daughter and taking the time-consuming burden of screening potential suitors off Molly's shoulders, she's found herself with the mother-load, if you will, of inquiries.
"It's been a bit overwhelming," says Beth of the hundreds of messages. "It's been like a job for me to read and write back to all the people. It's all been really, really positive.
"The very first letter that came in really got my attention. It was a tugboat captain, 31, from New York City. Now, how perfect is that? Very cute. He's not in the top 10 though that I'm going to be bringing to Molly. The CEO has also been helping me. And it's been very reaffirming because her sort of top 20 has a lot of overlaps with mine," says Beth.
So, what are Beth and Molly looking for in their search for "a good man"?
For Beth, she wants "someone who's really family oriented and really connected to a nice, loving family. I also wanted a strong friendship group who could complement Molly's nice friends."
Molly agrees and adds: "I want someone kind and smart and someone who can make me laugh, who I can laugh with. My mum and dad, they have a really nice, loving relationship. I feel so lucky to have such a good model in you guys. You do disagree, you spend a lot of time together, but you do it all so respectfully. You reach for kindness. You talk about everything. It's so nice and it's a thing that I definitely value."
Asked about her experience with Kiwi men, Molly says she always felt they had to be "approached so carefully".
"They are very skittish. Even Kiwis will tell you, you usually meet someone at a barbecue, you're all hanging out as friends, there has to be 'no pressure'."
"So, no fix ups?" asks Beth. To which Molly replies, "I just don't think New Zealand has the same dating culture. They have a hanging out culture."
But would Molly move back to New Zealand for "the right man"? She pauses before saying: "Oh. I am very much looking forward to when I get to come back to New Zealand."
And Beth jumps in: "It would be great if a wonderful Kiwi guy put his hand up for this. And if it's not, I know that Molly wants to pick an American who has that adventurous spirit so she could drag him to New Zealand. So one way or another, it's going to happen."
As the billboard's run comes to a close at the end of the month, and Molly gets set to start speaking with men from Beth's selection, she says she is, despite what some may think, grateful for her mum's "meddling".
"I am really grateful for this. It's a lot. It's very exciting. It's very out there, and I get it, it puts forward a singular message. I think it's not the worst thing in the world. Millennials, just in general, are not that outward and wouldn't say, 'This is what I want.' But I do really want a loving partner."
Asked how the two of them feel about what lies ahead - the hope for Molly and the pending health challenges for Beth - it's optimism that they keep front and center.
"I feel like it's brought us even closer together," Molly says of Beth's "fix up" effort gone global. "We've talked about a lot of things. And I feel like, as a baseline you and I are just optimistic people. We're optimistic to see where this will go. We're optimistic with your health, that you'll stay well," says Molly.
Beth agrees: "This has all been a bright spot in the middle of a cold, grey winter. I feel like I should be at home in New Zealand. And I hope I can come back to New Zealand at least for next summer. I'd really like that."
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