A PRIMER

The inquiry that shaped our Big Idea:

When women entered the labor market in droves in the 60’s and 70’s, there wasn’t much of a plan for who was going to mind hearth and home. We quickly discovered that in order to keep our homes running we had to outsource many hearth activities like cooking and child care to the Market.

"Homemade" has in many cases been replaced with "Market-made." And the promise of "having it all" has turned out to be a myth. After working all day, women spend another 4.5 hours caring for their families. We are exhausted - and our kids are fatter, sicker and more depressed than should be, given all of our advances.

Kathryn began to wonder if there was a link between our modern ills and an absence of presence and leadership in our homes. She was also thinking about how much access the Market has to our inner sanctums, and wondered if this was in any way connected to the low value assigned to 'home-related' activities in our societal status hierarchies. And if so, what could we do about it?

It then dawned on her: We share our cars through Uber and Lyft and our homes through Airbnb. What if we could share our Hearths with our neighbors in a similar way?

What if, right in your own neighborhood, networks of heartholgists–people who specialize in the hearth arts and human thriving–could help you with cooking, child, elder and pet care, and any number of services and goods that we all need to keep our homes and families strong?

What if hearthologists could care for you from their homes while caring for their own families ? What if they could be well paid by those of us who have chosen to work outside of the home?

What if, together, we could create a worldwide network of hyper-local communities who could meaningfully support each other's lives?