#90 - Erin Napier shares her advice for parenting in the digital age

Erin Napier  0:00  

Problem is some parents give these to their children and they treat them like toys, and so it's dangerous. What if you were using daddy's power saw, it's a tool, and you were playing with it? Do you think you might get hurt? And she's like, yo, it's the same thing. And I explained, there's a place in the phone, and it's it's a dangerous place. It's a really dangerous place, and mommy and daddy know how to use it as a tool, but kids don't, and she just is. It has been very understanding and accepting that, and so has never been curious, even she sees other kids use them in restaurants or something, and doesn't ask. She just does not. She's very uncurious. And I'm thankful for that, and I hope it sticks, but even if it doesn't stick, the fact remains, we're not going to let her have access to something dangerous until she's much older and has the wisdom to use the tool correctly.

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Joey Odom  0:54  

Welcome back to the Aro podcast. Hey, it's your good friend Joey Odom, co founder of Aro, hey, if you were like basically any normal family, then technology can be a struggle, and phones can be a struggle, and very often we don't know what to do. And I think the problem is so big, sometimes we don't know our small next step. So I would love to submit to you for your small next step to be to download the Aro app today and just try it. Try it for seven days for free. You can join after that. You can get an Aro box after that to level up. But for today, let's not worry about all that stuff in the future. How about just take your next small step and download the Aro app and try it out for seven days, a ro search that in the Google Play Store or the App Store. And today we had a fun guest, Erin Napier. Erin Napier, you all know from hometown on HGTV, she and her husband, Ben, are in Laurel, Mississippi, and high school actually college sweethearts. We talked about that a little bit. They're college sweethearts, and they basically make things new. They take old things, homes, for example, cars for example, and they make them new. And there is a major parallel here, obviously, kind of existentially. And we talk about that of this idea that no one's too far gone, no project is too far gone. And I had a great time talking with Erin. She is, she is as genuine as you can be. I will tell you, husbands, you may want to be careful about having your wives listen to this one, because Ben puts all of us to shame. He sits down at a typewriter every morning and he types out a note to Erin. That's something that I don't think. I've used the typewriter in a very, very long time, and I certainly am not writing cards every day or notes every day, but what a thoughtful thing. And that's after working on the farm and reading his Bible and working out because he wakes up at 430 so this is an impressive guy here. So what a neat story in their marriage and how they stay connected and united. And when we talk also a lot about their organization, osprey, kids, osprey is to help people with technology and to build your nest of other people around you who are aligned with you on technology and taking collective action to address this problem together. So we were so grateful to have Erin on the show. She is a she is genuine. She's a fountain of wisdom. And I loved our time for now, sit back, relax and enjoy my conversation with Erin Napier gang today is a tale as old as time. Boy Meets Girl. Girl interviews boy for yearbook. Boy instantly declares intentions to marry girl. Boy and girl launch multiple multiple TV shows and start a global empire from a small town in Mississippi. Pretty standard. You know her best as lead singer from Sunday's, Maria, and you know, and you know, and you know him best from leaving his size 14 boots out for everyone to trip over. Ben, she was knee high to him when they shared a knee high soda, one bottle, two straws, please, and the rest is history. He was a pastor of kids and youth, and now he's a master of tongue and groove as founder of Scotsman co these Ole Miss alums love the grove comma, the Rebs comma and Oxford. They love cars, and her Mitsubishi has been eclipsed by WIDA the wagoneer. True to their names, Big Ben is dependable as clockwork, and Erin as sweet as raspberry sorbet. They're the best thing. They're the best thing to happen to Mississippi since Elvis, and the best thing to happen to Laurel since Lance Bass to make to make our guests feel comfortable, no matter where you are, from Laurel to Collins, ellisville to Hattiesburg, Ocean Springs to Oxford. Let's hear it. Hottie toddy, gosh almighty. Who the heck are they? Flim farm, BIM barm, Erin and Ben by darn gang. Let's make something good today with our guests today on the Aro podcast. It's Erin Napier,

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Erin Napier  4:52  

Joey, that was really, really exceptional. Holy smokes.

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Joey Odom  4:57  

I had to. We had to go G rated on. Hottie Tiger there.

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Erin Napier  5:00  

It’s tough. You have to teach your little kids a new way to do the hottie.

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Joey Odom  5:05  

There was a, there was a for all the English nerds out there. There was a little easter egg, Oxford comma in there. Okay, I knew you. I knew you. I just knew it. I just knew you'd get an Oxford Oxford comma jokes, the

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Erin Napier  5:16  

literary capital of the South. I think Oxford is

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Joey Odom  5:20  

I think so. I think you're exactly right. I will say a couple. Let me just give you a couple runners up that didn't quite make it. I was going to say the our guests were a bunch of Lucky ducks with the founder of Lucky Lux. That would have worked. Okay, right? I was going to say for Ben. I was going to say the founder of Scotsman co wont blow smoke up your kilt could have worked, right? Yeah, it's so good to see you. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for indulging me. There we are. We as as are most people. We are lovers of Erin and Ben Napier, so thank you very, very much for joining us today. 

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Erin Napier  5:57  

Thank you for having me. I'm sorry Ben's not with us, but he's gonna listen to this and be tickled.

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Joey Odom  6:03  

And it's Ben's birthday Eve, and, by the way, an early Happy Birthday to Ben, or when this airs the late Happy Birthday. So now we're excited to have you and to kick us off. Is Ben still leaving his boots out? Is he is he is? Yeah, yeah. He's not quite improved on that. That's kind of the one thing. Like, you guys really, like, I really like, no Lance, bad bass, you know, pun intended here, you really are in sync. And except for the boots,

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Erin Napier  6:32  

it's, um, he's got, his shoes are just really huge. And there's, like, right when you walk in the back door, there's like, six pair. And no matter how many times I put, you know, there's a dressier pair, there's a super muddy pair, that a kind of muddy pair. And I put them where they go, and then they come right back, over and over. It's fine, you know, he's, he's the most exceptional husband and dad in the world. Side. Will not complain about it, but I will move the boots over.

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Joey Odom  6:59  

Yes, absolutely. Ben and I, by the way, we do share size 14 shoes. You guys, I know, and I'm probably just as bad on mine. But hey, you know what? No need to point fingers, especially not at me. You know what I mean. Let's we can, we can move on from that. So Erin, I your story. Most people will know you from from your TV shows, from hometown, hometown, takeover and HGTV, and I would love to hear, I think the thing that was fascinating to me is I've spent a lot of time, you know, researching you for this conversation today is, is just how this all happened. And it's almost like, I know that sounds basic, but you probably get this question a lot, but here you are with everybody knows you. I mean, I even, like you read through the articles, and it's just like people write things about every mine, you know, minute detail of your life, which has to get very old. Do you ever take a second and just be like, how did we get here? Like, what happened to get here? So that's question one. Then two, will you take us all the way back to how you got discovered and how it how you all came on the scene to get, to get in the spotlight, completely

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Erin Napier  8:03  

by accident. We I owned a wedding stationery company, and we were enjoying renovating an old craftsman house that I wanted since I was a little girl in downtown Laurel, and I had a daily blog journal, really, because I just wrote about the best thing that happened every day, and I wrote about us renovating that house, and about how I had expensive taste, but couldn't afford anything. So Ben had to learn how to make things, and it started when we were at Ole Miss. He learned how to use the saws and the equipment in the art school, because I needed help building frames for my artwork. So he did that for me, and that's kind of where it began for him. Was building picture frames for my artwork in college, and then he was building furniture for our house. I would find an antique that I wanted really badly but couldn't afford, and I would take pictures of it and get measurements from every angle, and then say, can you build that? And so he just did, and I wrote about it, and because I was in the wedding industry, a magazine called Southern weddings asked if we would do a feature called Southern newlywed. That was about what it's like when you get married and you start sharing a home and your taste and your style and what you bring to the house together, and an HGTV executive named Lindsay widehorn, who became one of our dearest friends in the world, read that article and reached out and asked if we had ever thought about doing TV, and it's absolutely nothing we had ever I'll be honest with you, we didn't watch HGTV. We didn't watch I mean, we were just busy running a business and doing youth ministry and fixing this house, so TV was not on our mind at all. And it's just strange that the day that HGTV. Be that Lindsay emailed and asked that question. Happened to be the same day Ben had written his resignation letter to the church. Wow, saying I feel like I'm aging out of youth ministry. I don't know how to connect with a generation that is so attached to this digital world that isn't he, it was, it was he was going through like an existential thing, because he he had always looked to his younger brother as 10 years older, and when he graduated high school, Ben just started to feel like he was losing touch with that age. He was like, I don't have any insight there anymore. And it feels like these kids have a separate life that lives online. And anyway, I know that is so I've not put the connected these thoughts that the thing that he left ministry over is something we're still working on, right? Whoa. Um, anyway. And so that felt not like it means we're going to make a TV show, but it meant that like God was giving us affirmation that you're taking a step in the right direction, I guess. Yeah, that anyway. And then we did a pilot, and never expected it to get picked up. And it was the, like, most watched episode of HGTV ever, because there was a snowstorm on the East Coast, and people were like, housebound watching HGTV that day real quick to jump in.

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Joey Odom  11:24  

I don't think it was just because of the snowstorm. I think, I think it's you all may have, may have had something to do with that,

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Erin Napier  11:30  

maybe some, but mostly they were just stuck in their house. And anyway, here we are. We're filming season eight, and it's, it's bizarre, but the great thing is, this happened to us later in life. You know, we were 31 and 33 years old, so we're not, I don't know. I don't think we're any different. We've, we've withdrawn, if anything, we, we have, you know, our family and our friends that we've had before there was TV, and they're still the only people we are real close with. So to us, nothing. We live in Laurel, Mississippi, you know, I go eat separate my mama's house two or three times a week, and so nothing feels different. It's weird that if I post something on Instagram. It gets analyzed in a news story sometimes, but also it's okay. I mean, if it keeps people watching TV, I guess then it keeps us employed. So,

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Joey Odom  12:30  

yeah, that's helpful. Yeah, it so this was about eight years ago, eight or nine years ago? Is that right? When Ben turned in his roasting 2015, okay? Got it nine years ago. Yeah, got it. And it is interesting. We'll get to, we'll get to osprey, but it is very interesting. The this idea, you're right, of the of the technology being, what the catalyst was to get out of youth ministry for Ben, at least vocationally, and then into and then now here you are, kind of circling all the way back and even then. I mean, gosh, I think a lot of us would think, we'd think, like, 2015, like things weren't even bad then. And it's, and it's amazing, and it's, and it's wild to to think that it just is continued, continued on. We'll get to that in a little bit. But that is how odd is that? Yeah, one thing that jumps out to me and in what you all do, and I'm looking at this probably more existentially, thinking about it in your work, is you all restore and redeem things, things that I mean. You like to take older things, and you like to make them, make them new and redeem them. Is there a in the work that you do, the physical work that you do, and maybe helpful to tell people what you all like to do physically, but that physical work, it seems like there is such a spiritual element to that as well in reclaiming things and redeeming things. Do you all see it that way as well?

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Erin Napier  13:52  

Yeah, absolutely. I think obviously our faith is a big part of our life and who we are, and so anything we do, we we see through that lens. And I hope that if there are people who watch who have never experienced faith, that maybe it makes them curious, that that, you know, it's not, it's not a heavy handed thing about our faith or anything, but what we do is we show people that nothing is too far gone to be redeemed, and people are that way too. And I think if you watch hometown and you feel good at the end of it, it's not because it was pretty tile or sofas or whatever. I think it's because you feel good watching something that might have been deemed valueless. Now, at the end, has value and worth, not financial, but it's home to somebody. It makes someone cry because they see their future in that moment that this is. The next chapter of their life that you're watching. And yeah, I definitely see I see that in the work we do, and when we do so many at the same time, it's easy to get mired in the work, the actual work of it all, but then we watch the episode and remember what we're doing,

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Joey Odom  15:22  

yeah, yeah, take it behind. This is just a curiosity, as if you were, like, behind the scene. I mean, you all are so invested in those what is that? You know, you'd hear this the old stories of, like, the old, like, Extreme Makeover type shows, whereas, like, the the stars would pop in for two or three minutes and then pop out, and then they'd move the bus and, like, it would be, like they would, they would, they would have been involved in the project for like, six minutes. I know that's an I'm being hyperbolic there. But are you really as deeply involved in all these projects as it seem you are? Seems you are.

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Erin Napier  15:52  

Um, now we get to where we have to be more like editors got it this point in the process, because we're doing five houses at a time. In the beginning, we were doing two at a time, and then it became three at a time, and now it's five at a time, and sometimes there's a little overlap, and it becomes six or seven for about two weeks. And with that sort of workload, you have to have such a huge team. And we're having meetings constantly. We have these massive text groups where, like, I have a design team, so it's me and four other people. And so I will have said, Okay, this is the color that I really want to go with for the exterior. And these are the light fixtures, and this is the wallpaper. And then they go and they order, and they come back to me and they say, you know, this is back ordered. It's not going to come in. What do you think about this? And then I said, Yeah, that'll work. Let's go with that instead. And then so we're in this constant pivot. We just are pivoting every day. Every decision I've ever made, I had to pivot on because of this or that, it seems like. But we have to do a whole lot of trusting your team to be watching your blind spots all the time, and we have a huge and very talented team, and I'm so thankful. But yeah, if you're if your face is on camera, this is some Mallory, my best friend, is like, sitting right there. Aren't you here still? Yeah, Mallory's over there. Yeah. She films with me pretty often. And she was noticing the other day that when you're on camera, your face is in front of the camera for from eight to five, there is no flexibility. You are not able to, like, go sit down at the computer and go back over the spec sheet to say, no, no, no, I don't want to do these colors. I don't want to do this or that. You have to commit to it and then trust your team to, yeah, to fix things along the way as the pivots start to happen. But does that answer your question? Absolutely

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Joey Odom  17:46  

it does. And it's well, and it's and it's terrific too, because it probably allows, in a way that allows you to trust your team. It probably forces you into your sweet spot, right? It's like you are, like, you're able to, like, live in your real superpower, which is great, which I'm sure everybody can do a bunch of other things, but if you can really live in that spot and then let others live in their sweet spot, that's not just the that's not just a lesson for your show, but it's a lesson for all of us in life, you can have those people around you and trust the people around you. What a great thing you for you to be able to use your God given ability.

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Erin Napier  18:19  

My job is like I get I'm the one my team never gets to meet our homeowners, but I do, yeah, there you go. So you know, weeks before I meet them, they've been filling out surveys and and, like, it's really probably exhausting to the homeowner, but I need to know everything. I need to know the whole story about who they are and what they love before we meet. And so then the day we make, things might come out that I wouldn't have known. And we filmed together for two days, usually. And in those two days, I'm like, texting my team. She said she really likes this, but she really hates that, and she didn't really emphasize that on her survey. And I think we really need to forget that thing we were planning to do. So that's like, my job is to be, I'm kind of a psychologist, yeah, yeah, it's my job to dig when I meet these people. And I kind of, I enjoy that, yeah, to that

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Joey Odom  19:12  

interpersonal side, you reference it there. And then you you touched on a little bit ago. On, no one's ever too far gone. No thing is ever too far gone? Have you found yourself as you've learned that more and more and that's more and more deeply embedded, have you found that you've been challenged in that area? It's almost like you the thing you know most deeply, sometimes you get most challenged on have you? Have you found that, have you confronted different situations, maybe in interpersonal relationships, whether it's family or friends, where you've had this, where you've maybe that's been a struggle, or where you've had to rely on the things that you've learned in order to maybe help you get through some tougher personal situations like that. Yeah,

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Erin Napier  19:51  

I really believe that no matter what happens, it's going to be all right. It really is going. Be alright. I have to remind myself of that every day. But then I see it, you know, I see a house that was like, This thing should be torn down, but it's special for this reason or that to our homeowner, and we are going to fix the thing. And then I see it fixed, and I think everything really can be okay. Well, really can, yeah, that really

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Joey Odom  20:20  

is worth just a pause for the listener to to to soak that in, because it it. We all, we all feel in any situation we're in that we're the exception. But I think what you just stated was, was a was a truth that can be applied to any situation. So even when we feel far gone, like we're really not far gone, it is something that's good to probably let that internalize for just a minute and not view yourself, not not view that great piece of advice or great truth you said, just for somebody else, but it is for you. It is for it is for us to soak that in ourselves. I'm curious with you as a couple, it's you were, this was nine years ago, and is Helen? Is Helen seven? Is that right? She'll

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Erin Napier  21:02  

be seven in January.

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Joey Odom  21:04  

So you you had kids, right? Right after launching a TV show, you started having kids, which seems relatively stressful, so fun to

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Erin Napier  21:12  

be pregnant on TV. It

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Joey Odom  21:14  

feels like it would be. It feels like it feels like that would be pretty amazing. So what is, what has that been like as for you and Ben in your you, you come across so united, and I believe you are, but that's got to be, you have to be as a couple in sync all the time, on the same page, and then you layer on parenting, and then you layer on being on a TV show. How have the two of you fought for your unity and your marriage through all of this.

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Erin Napier  21:45  

I'll tell you, I think it's that we met when we were so young. I was 19 and he was 21 and in Mississippi terms, that's kind of older a lot of people, really, a lot of people marry their high school sweethearts. We met in college, so we were older, but really, I know that we were so young, and it's like this. We were two trees growing and going in different directions. I was gonna go and work on a magazine and a big city far away, and he had no idea what he was gonna do. He was just out here being like everybody's best friend and having the time of his life. And you meet each other, and then I find that we just sort of started growing together. We grew around each other. And so we are. So I don't know where all of our interests and our personality and our identities are are grown around each other. And so it feels like none of this is none of this is us. TV is not us. It's a picture of us and it looks like us, but we are the first priority in our family and our girls, and we're very good at saying no. I mean, it doesn't matter what opportunity comes up if it might negatively impact the girls or make them feel like mama and daddy weren't there for us, or Mom and Daddy can't be with us, and we say no, like we don't even have to think about that. And I think that comes with maturity, because we're older now, like, I don't care about making money as much as I care about my girls saying Mama and Daddy were always there for us. So we're not taking opportunities that take us away from home unless they go with us for every minute of it. And so that's hometown takeover. That was something like, if we had had to leave the girls behind for one day of that, no way. And maybe it's that I'm just a homebody or something, but we have a if you need us to do something for more than one night away, you have to pay for our kids, a grandma, a nanny. We all coming, yeah, and that's hard now that she's in school. So that has she her schedule kind of dictates what we say, yes and no, too a lot, but, um, yeah, just as as a couple, we just we've never been apart. We really have never been apart since we were 19 and 21 years old, in every job we've ever had. We did together when he was in youth ministry and I owned a stationary company. I kind of took over with the girls in the youth ministry, and he was kind of with the guys, and just every minute we've been together, and so that's the only way we know. I wish that every couple in the world could work together all the time, because you find that you don't have things to disagree over if you're the I everything he hears during the day, I'm standing beside him, and I heard it as well. Yeah, yeah, this is a rare moment when we're not together. It'll be for one hour and 30 minutes, and then I'll see him again. But yeah, so we have great communication with each other, and I always know what's going on with. Him, and he always knows what's going on with me, and in that way, we keep our marriage. I don't even it's just the default that that has to be rock solid all the time, yeah,

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Joey Odom  25:12  

which sounds like it comes through naturally. It sounds like you, you that that naturally happens. You naturally want to be around each other. I think you know, maybe the one messages you really do like each other and you want to be around each other, but it does sound also like you You have also, while it may be natural, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't put up like natural barriers too, which sounds like you all have, like you are protective and you are very intentional and so and then one, that was one thing that was coming up in my mind, as you were saying, that was just, it sounds like you are very protective of the things, one, you know, the things that are important to you, and then you protect those. You protect those things, right?

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Erin Napier  25:49  

Yeah, in my experience, when you do that, the right thing is going to happen, yeah, yeah. Every time when, when we prioritize our family first, then the right thing always happens.

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Joey Odom  26:02  

Is it true? Does he actually write a note to you every morning? Is this a is this a real thing? Do we need to get put in debunk this on smoke Snopes, or is that an actual thing that he does every day? That's

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Erin Napier  26:13  

a real thing. He is, um, he had 1000 pieces of custom stationery with his name on the top. That was just the right size for his typewriter, and he went through it all. So now he's using, like, any kind of paper that he can stuff into his little typewriter.

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Joey Odom  26:29  

Wait, is the typewriter too? Yeah, wow. He

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Erin Napier  26:32  

also has, like, quit carrying a phone, so, like, he's got an he's got a Apple Watch in his pocket. So it's like, he likes he's like, I want a beeper so he can just voice text me. And it's fine, but yeah, he's um, I would say something. What is it that make his handwriting? He's embarrassed by his handwriting, but he likes to write people letters, and so he got a typewriter. You can never keep a computer and a printer working. At least our house, our prayer has been jammed since 2010 Yeah, so he got a typewriter, and he just enjoys writing people letters, and every morning, it's this very intentional act that he does. He gets up at 430, or five, and he reads his Bible, he drinks his coffee, then he writes me a letter, then he does his work on the farm and works out. And I'm just getting up at six. Wow, at six o'clock I'm getting up, and he's, like, had a

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Joey Odom  27:35  

whole day, but, and he's got a Coke Zero waiting on you. I hear also, is that true?

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Erin Napier  27:39  

I've switched to real coke. I feel like aspartame is worse than sugar, but I don't know. Yeah, I could see it. Coke is my vice. I just have one one in the morning. That's

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Joey Odom  27:48  

not bad. That's pretty good to have one vice and only one Coke a day. I mean that that really is like hearing that he sounds like Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation, like he sounds like so disciplined. And he's a woodworker also, but wow, that is that that that is very motivational.

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Erin Napier  28:04  

Yeah, he he enjoys writing also, and never gets to do it. He did. He has a minor in creative writing, and he just misses writing words, I think, and it, it's the only way he can do it, but it's usually very short, like this note this morning was thanking me for such a good weekend and thanking me for the kind of mother that I am. It's like, the sweet it's just very brief, but gosh, I can't wait to get my note every morning and I make him coffee, like, that's, that's what I have time for. And then I'm like, making school lunches and breakfast. And yeah, it's, it was chaos this morning.

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Joey Odom  28:48  

It I we our family. We were in California this summer, and we visited the Reagan Library. And that was one of his signatures. Was his letters to Nancy Reagan with Ronald. And it was just, there's something even talking about it just evokes this just kind of emotion in you, because it's just such a sweet little act. And it's interesting how, like you said, it can be a very small note, but those things over time, like the compounding impact of those small acts over time, which that's a large act, but the compounding effect of those small acts over time is exceptional when you look at it over the course of a lifetime, so obviously for you and your marriage, but then for your daughters and what they're going to expect from I know it's what an amazing precedent he's setting. I'm

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Erin Napier  29:30  

afraid he set too much

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Joey Odom  29:32  

of a precedent that is quite a that is quite hard to live up to.

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Erin Napier  29:36  

I mean, our dads are great, great men, but they did not write our mother's letters every day. I don't know where he he's very romantic, but I think about all these letters that he writes me, and I keep them in boxes, and the girls will get those one day, and that's my favorite thing to think about, actually, is that. Have all that

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Unknown Speaker  30:00  

that's so sweet. Yeah,

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Speaker 1  30:06  

I think what was a turning point for me was when I felt like I was struggling with like resentment, because I would be trying to finish something, finish a post, finish something, and then there would be like an interruption, which there inevitably is, if you have any children ever, there's always interruptions. So I think that was just like a heart check for me, like, why am I? Why am I feeling this way? My child is not like, like she's interrupting me from something that's not as important as she is. You know, like social media. Our phones are not as important as our children, but sometimes when we are interrupted while we're on our phones, that is the response that I had to not reflect that. And it's still, if I'm honest, sometimes it still does, it still doesn't. And so that's gonna have to completely check. You know, being intentional about my phone usage.

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Joey Odom  30:53  

We love hearing stories from the Aro community. The one you just heard actually comes from our voices of our episodes where I sit down with ro members and they share about their stories and their lives with Aro. Make sure to check out the voices of Aro episodes. And if you're a member who would like to share your own story with Aro, please email us at stories@goro.com I would say another legacy that you all are establishing together is through Osprey. And I would love for the listener, and this is, this is what, by the way, we we at ro we love you as humans, but what really drew us to you was what you're doing with osprey, and the intentionality around technology and the legacy that you're you're gonna leave for your girls in this for and for a lot of other families. Will you tell us first, first, what is Osprey? And then will you maybe go a little bit farther back and tell us, how did you Where was this birth, where you tell us the backstory behind this as well? Yes,

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Erin Napier  31:48  

osprey is old school parents raising engaged youth. Ben is very proud of that acronym. That's

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Joey Odom  31:54  

a fantastic acronym. I mean, that is, like, that's an aggressively good acronym,

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Erin Napier  32:00  

right? He was obsessed with, like, you know, in the 90s, we had Dare and mad, yes, sad, I think was, and I was like, I don't think it matters. What if it has an acronym, like, no, no, it's gotta

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Joey Odom  32:11  

have. We're gonna get an acronym. We got the, like, two

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Erin Napier  32:15  

syllable acronym that's pretty hardcore. Yeah. So really, everything is about we want our kids to have the childhood that we had. It was just so good, and we felt like it was just common sense among our group of friends, Mallory, who's sitting right over here, she and Jim and their girls, and then the now wills our other business partners and friends and their kids and then some other friends of the trusts who also live in our neighborhood. Adam tress, he's an artist that has just blown up in the last few years, but he all of us together, just thought, we're never going to let our kids have access to this. This is crazy. Why would we ever? And it felt so common sense. And it's not like some, some big movement that we were planning or strategizing or even met about, we're just like, No, why would I ever?

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Joey Odom  33:12  

And you're talking specific to social media, and when you say just this,

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Erin Napier  33:16  

yeah, yeah, letting, letting them just have free access to the internet seems crazy to us. It seems like driving a car. Helen is six, and she's got one of those little Power Wheels jeeps, right? Sis, can drive it pretty good. But if I said, Helen, do you want to just drive us to school today? I mean, she's tall enough, I suppose her foot could touch the pedal. She knows how to steer the wheel. Does that mean we should let her? Yeah, right, no. And to us, it feels so apparent. And this is the thing. I was very rebellious in high school. I didn't do well with authority, being told you can do this or you can do that, and I would say, Nope, I'm going to do it exactly how I want to do it. My parents really loved my teenage years.

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Joey Odom  34:12  

That sounds it sounds wonderful. They're proud of me now,

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Erin Napier  34:15  

but it took time. But what I'm saying is, when I went to college, to art school, and I said, I'm moving back home to Laurel when I'm done here. And they were like, you're not going to be able to have a career in art in Laurel, Mississippi. And I was like, watch me like, it makes me so mad to be told you can't, you can't do that. And so when I hear parents who are like, you're not going to be able to keep your kids away from phones and social media. I just think I will do it in the same way that I keep them from driving my car. They won't even think it's an option. Yeah, right. Why would they think it's an option if I don't make it one, and we talk about it all. Time. Helen is six, and she has never held this except to FaceTime grandparents and anytime I've ever asked her, can you bring my phone to me for this reason or that? She like, holds it like, Yeah, I'm like, I was like, it's a tool. It's a tool. It's not a toy. And the problem is, some parents give these to their children and they treat them like toys. And so it's dangerous. What if you were using daddy's power saw, it's a tool, and you were playing with it? Do you think you might get hurt? And she's like, Yo, yeah, it's the same thing. And I explained there's a place in the phone and it's, it's a dangerous place. Yeah, it's a really dangerous place. And mommy and daddy know how to use it as a tool, but kids don't, and she just is. It has been very understanding and accepting that, yeah, and so has never been curious, even she sees other kids use them in restaurants or something, and doesn't ask. She just does not. She's very uncurious, and I'm thankful for that, and I hope it sticks. But even if it doesn't stick, the fact remains, we're not going to let her have access to something dangerous until she's much older. Yeah, has the wisdom to use the tool correctly and

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Joey Odom  36:19  

and this is and what's beautiful about osprey, what I love is, what you just described, is you explain

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Unknown Speaker  36:25  

it. I'm sorry.

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Joey Odom  36:27  

No, get it. Do it.

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Erin Napier  36:28  

Let me tell you about Osprey. Tell me, come on, it's collective action. Oh, now

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Joey Odom  36:33  

you're talking, yeah, now you're talking some Jonathan height,

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Erin Napier  36:38  

yeah, the anxious generation, yes. Covers this in detail, but collective action is the answer. And so that's what Osprey is. It is a collective decision among several families. All of our kids are best friends, and these are the only people they spend substantial time with. And we've all been like, Oh, we're just not going to do this. Yeah. And so then, if you take away peer pressure when they're little, and I think that's very important, we're not waiting till like eighth grade. We're not talking about eighth grade. We're gonna say nope, yeah. You gotta start this now, and you gotta make it really like, I love, I love to, to be the weird one. Yes. Honestly, I thrive in weirdness. So if other parents are like, Wow, you're really just like, not gonna let them have a phone. Yeah, I'm really just not gonna do that. Yeah. And then none of my friends are either. And even my brother has a little boy who's 11, they're on the same page. You know, he's a little ahead of us, and still, their son isn't asking for it, either. And so I think the key is you just have to have groups of families find each other, form your nest, and that becomes your support system, and you make tech decisions together. So like right now, the oldest in our friend group, the girls turned 11, and so they got watches that can just text and call and that's it. Because, I mean, when we were 11, we could go to our room and call our best friend, yeah, on the phone, right? And I think a 10 and 11 year old kid needs to have that freedom to be able to call a friend, and we don't want to take that away from them. So there are watches, you know that you can this. I treat this as my landline. When I get home, I put the phone away, and if you want to call me, I'll talk to you on this. But, um, yeah, that's, that's what we've been doing. We make tech decisions together, and it keeps your child from feeling like I'm the only one you can say, no, none of your friends have that.

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Joey Odom  38:41  

And so for and you're right. You, you. When I was about to bring up, the thing I loved about it was it was multiple people who started this. It's not just you and Ben out doing it, it's you and several others who are doing it. And again, the collective action is the key there, because, and again, for people listening who aren't familiar with that concept, in collective action, a collective action problem requires a collective action together with with multiple people, because if it's just one person trying to remove themselves from a group of what everybody else is doing, they will be excluded. But if the mass does it together. And what's interesting about what you the life that you have just described, I don't think I could find a family, a well intentioned family, who would say they don't want that for their kids. They they don't want it. We all want it. It's just the thing. In the meantime, it's like my daughter said the other day, my 14 year old daughter, who's hilarious, we're talking about Spanish class, and she was saying she she didn't like it. And I said, Well, why not? I was like, Don't you like Spanish? She goes, No, I want to learn what she say, I want to know Spanish. I just don't want to learn Spanish, right? So it's that thing, and it's that gap. So everybody wants their children to have deep relationships and be able to look at somebody in the eyes, but it's that hard thing in the middle, and it removes so much of the friction when you do it with others. Exactly what you just said,

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Erin Napier  39:53  

yeah, you just gotta and now Osprey has 26,000 families. Wow. All over America, and it's very informal. I mean, it's just grassroots. We're really, literally just giving families language. Yes, we That's it. We don't have, you know, we're not coming to your school to set up a program and you join. You do it, yeah, the person listening to this right now, you can do it. You just go to Osprey kids.com if you want to get our guidebook that explains it, but if not literally, all you're doing is finding other families. You start when your children are very young, and I'm talking kindergarten, and make that the norm that they grow up with. It's what they expect and are used to. Then they will think all the kids who are getting phones when they're eight, 910, 11 years old, are the weird ones? Yeah, it's not that I want them to feel like those kids are weird. I want them to feel like I'm not weird. Yeah, and yeah. So that's it. That's Osprey

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Joey Odom  40:52  

kids. It's the and the great thing about that is it is for the benefit of kids when they're older, but it has to start when they're young. And you just said this, that's the only way to do it. It's it's we have a friend, Scott Kaufman, who says this. He says, When, when your kids are young, the the stakes are high, but the pain is low. And the longer you wait, the stakes will remain equally high, but the pain increases as your kids get older. So to your point, if you start this in eighth grade, you can still do it. I promise you, it's not too late. Please don't let that deter you, but it's a heck of a lot easier when they're kindergarteners. Right To your point, it's a heck a lot easier. I'm curious, would you talk for a moment about parents modeling good phone behavior if, let's say you have you've, yeah, we talked to us about them. It's so important, but it is so hard. We talked about that a little

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Erin Napier  41:40  

bit. I fail at it a lot. But the general rule is, when we get home, we take our phones to our bedroom, plug them in, yeah, and shut the door, yeah. And we're with the girls. We're in the kitchen, you know, we're doing homework. We don't have phones at the table. And if the girls ever see us on our phones, we try to say what it is that we're doing, yeah. So we say, that's good. Miss Katie just texted that there's something wrong at the house that we're working on right now. There's something wrong with the light fixture. And she's asking me, what I think about this problem. What do you think about this problem? What do you think I should do? I think it's important that we start talking about what we're doing on these things. Yeah. Because otherwise, if we're sitting in silence and we're just scrolling, scrolling, I say I am looking at what the weather is going to be like this week, because there's supposed to be a hurricane coming. I don't want them to wonder, what is Mommy looking at? What is Mommy doing? And so that's, that's it. I mean, it's the best we can do, I think, is to try to keep, keep our phones tools. Man, they just have to be tools. It's our newspaper. Now it's our phone. Yeah, and if I'm texting people, I try to explain what it is I'm texting about even, yeah, because we were kids, we would hear our moms on the phone saying, you know, did you hear that? So and so was in the hospital. Do you think we need to go take so and so with casserole like we understood what our parents were doing and what they and that's how we learned how to be adults. Was by watching they can't learn how to be an adult by watching me tap on this. They don't know that I'm writing an email about how to deal with this or that. So I say, what I'm doing is that that

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Joey Odom  43:25  

is brilliant, that I that's probably worth somebody bouncing back 45 seconds to hear that again, because what you just said was such a key piece of our childhood, and not just we would hear it out loud, but then we get get a call, or my Uncle Chuck would call for my dad. So I talked with Uncle Chuck for a couple minutes before dad pass them over to dad, right? You would, you would be able to be engaged in something larger than yourself, and instead of, yes, right? So it's inside

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Erin Napier  43:49  

of yourself, yeah, that I'm not just sitting on here, like looking at Instagram, that's very important to me, that they don't think I'm just having fun on this,

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Joey Odom  43:58  

right? Yes, exactly.

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Erin Napier  44:01  

How are they going to know if we're just sitting silence while we use our phones? That's right,

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Joey Odom  44:05  

I don't That's beautiful. I love what you're doing, and I do want everybody to go this and this to me, Erin, this is for people who it's almost like, I know I need to do something, but what can I do? Like this? Is it? This is in when your kids are young. Just go, take this step now and go find your nest, right? So, build

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Erin Napier  44:22  

your nest. Man, absolutely. Nobody wants their kids to be zombies and on a phone. They just don't. Yeah, and in the time that we're when all this time, I hope, while they're not on phones, not on devices, they're doing things like going out in the barn with Ben to learn how to fix the screen door, wow. Or learn how to there's a train going, sorry, um. Or they're like,

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Joey Odom  44:48  

Ben's like, the conductor of that by the way, I feel like, you know what I mean, like, the way we've described Ben. I feel like I could see him up there on the front being the conductor.

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Erin Napier  44:55  

I'll just tell you, he's awesome. I freaking love that dude. He's just. Awesome. Um, I've had a crush on him since I was 18 years old, so, and I still have one but, um, I love the way he teaches our girls. He's if he's if he's working on things, whether they want to learn or not. Usually they don't. They do not care about how to fix the screen door, but he's going to try his best to make them look and listen. Um, maybe when they get older, they'll be into it. But for sure, yeah, so I don't know the the modeling part is the absolute hardest part, yeah. And if I find myself scrolling on my phone being quiet, I think this isn't good, yeah, this isn't good at all.

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Joey Odom  45:35  

Yeah. Well, I would love everybody to go to osprey, kids.com and let's just, just for Ben. I'm going to, let's, let's just say the, I'll say the acronym one more time. Old school parents raising engaged youth, osprey kids.com. If you need to know your next step. Erin, thank you for spending time with us. Thank you for talking about Osprey. Thank you for the work you're doing. I'm sure the 26,000 families out there who are experiencing it, but thank you as well, and all the people who are who are going to join Osprey as well. So thank you so much for your work and for joining the our podcast today. Um,

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Erin Napier  46:06  

same to you. Thank you. What you're doing is important. It's so important. Thank you. Awesome. Yeah, appreciate

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Joey Odom  46:12  

you. I love hearing what Erin was talking about and engaging your child and letting them come into your world. And when you're using your phone, and she they were very, very intentional. Obviously, they try to protect the time that they're on their phones in front of their kids, but when they are, she's talking out loud about what they're doing, and that that could spark more conversation, and you can invite them in to hear what you're doing and see, maybe see the phone as not just a dispenser of games and entertainment, but a tool that you can use to connect with other people and to help other people and to encourage other people and to start conversations with your kids, what a great way to teach them about what you're doing on the phone. It's not as if, when we were growing up, I don't think many of us viewed our landline as a bad thing. And maybe a component of that, maybe a component of that was just the fact that it was almost a group activity. It was something we did together, and we could learn about each other and other people's lives while we did it. So I love her perspective on that, and I want to highlight again, go to Osprey kids.com if this is something that sounds interesting to you, the idea of starting this very early is something I would encourage to everyone. I started late. I wish I would have started earlier. Heath, our co founder, started late. He wishes he would have started earlier. And so if you can do that and steal the words of our friend Scott Kaufman, you can do it when the stakes are high but the pain is low, you are at such an advantage by starting a young so many thanks to Erin Napier, loved having her on the show and appreciate what they're doing at Osprey. Thank you for joining us for this week's ro podcast. We can't wait to see you again next week. The Aro Podcast is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co. Special thanks to Emily Miles and Catelyn Krings for media and digital support and to executive producers, Anthony Palmer of Palm Tree, Pod co and the prince of the low country, tides himself, Rich Donnellan of Aro.

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