I have got two friends called Kim and Kym.

They are both gorgeous wisdom machines.

Kim has golden hair, half moon eyes and a fabulous company called Nature Therapy CIC.

Kym is a young man with blue eyes, long eye lashes and kindness. He used to work in our restaurant, Tramezzini, and made a very decent coffee.

A little while ago I was talking to Kym. I was sipping coffee. He was leaning on the counter by the till, sipping tea. We were discussing children; having children; not having children; when to have children; when to not have children; what happens when you do have children.

“When I have children, I won’t see this as my job,” Kym said. He pressed his palms, flat down on the Ryde pier wood counter and surveyed the tables with their little succulents in copper pots and bowls with brown and white sugar cubes.

“When I have my own family, I will see them as my vocation. My home – my household – will be my job. Working to earn money will simply be a way to fund what I’m really here to build in my family and home.”

I loved that.

I so, bloody LOVED hearing it.

Kym’s bit of thought-treasure sunk into the very glitter that swirls through the cells in my bone marrow.

In our western world of machines and science and money and cryptocurrency and careers and ranking and status and status updates, the world of working is so glaringly idolised.

It’s celebrated.

It’s worshipped with an edge that’s almost verging on kink.

People are labelled by their jobs; their earning power; their ability to command a wage. Meanwhile, the homestead, the household, the home-life is a tiny slither – a side line – in the driven race to achieve wealth and status.

As I drank my coffee and the caffeine swirled through the tubular Universe of my blood stream, I imagined how different life would feel if our households were held as our “real” jobs as Kym had so beautifully put it. I imagined how families would change if home was where 80% of energy and creativity and value was poured. I imagined the artful living and active parenting and how gardens would grow bright and vegetables would be cultivated and how backs and necks would be straighter and skin brighter.

I imagined how proud people would be of their families.

It felt to me that this switch could be the turning point of something beautiful and marvellous.

A seed planted.

A different sort of seed.

All of this whirling in my coffee brain, I said goodbye to Kym and Ads and whoever else was in Tramezzini at the time and went off on my way, whistling a little tune and itching to begin a little blog series about the little bits of wisdom and gorgeousness that I seem to stumble upon on these travels of mine.

And this is the first bit of treasure I’m popping in the nest: Kym’s Household.