Like a lot of families, HGTV stars Ben and Erin Napier have a family motto.
Unlike a lot of families, theirs involves a red bucket.
On “The Heirloom” podcast, which is hosted by the Napiers’ friends Jim Rasberry and Josh Nowell, Erin let listeners in on how the Napier family mantra has become those two words, “red bucket.”
Erin was on the podcast with her best friends and the podcast hosts’ wives, Mallorie Rasberry and Emily Nowell. And the focus was on motherhood. The three women have a combined total of eight children, including Erin and Ben’s daughters Helen, 7 and Mae, 4.
About twenty minutes into the podcast, Erin took the time to explain how an incident with daughter Helen formed their family motto.
Napier Family Motto Started With a Storm
The “Home Town” designer told her friends that the family recently went to check on their farm after a big storm. And when they got there, they found that a red bucket of Ben’s had blown off the deck and fallen into a spillway from their pond.
Erin and Helen strategized on how to retrieve the bucket from the deep spillway full of fast-flowing water, trying various methods with a fishing pole and a net.
Erin says after 45-minutes of trying, Helen had popped herself in the face with a carabiner and was covered in mud. Frustrated, she yelled, “Just forget it.”
But Erin said, “No, we will not give up on the red bucket.” Helen thought of new strategies and kept trying, finally staging a dramatic rescue of the bucket. “She ran to me with the bucket,” said Erin, “and I could, like, cry. I was so freaking proud of her. It was extremely physically hard. And she was filthy and she like, tackled me. And we were jumping up and down.”
Napier Bucket Rescue Becomes a Life Lesson for Daughters
Now Erin says that emotional moment has turned into a life lesson and a family mantra.
“Now, any time we have two choices. We can complain about something or we can do the hard thing. And do it. I say ‘red bucket.’ And she’s like.. I hear like ‘Eye of the Tiger’ playing in her head. And so ‘red bucket’ has just like become our family mantra. Where you can do hard things. Like move back to the town you’re from and it’s awful and everything’s closed. Red bucket! We have red bucketed Laurel the best we could.”
Erin Napier Says She’s a Fan of Boredom
While talking about their children’s personalities and quirks, Jim Rasberry asked the ladies what was the greatest motherly advice they had gotten. Erin Napier said her mom was always making things with her and encouraged her to be bored.
“Because when I was bored was when I was most creative. Boredom created great things,” said Erin. She told the story of her mom helping her make a tiger costume like the local high school mascot. Erin says, “And that is exactly who Helen is now.”
Erin also said an older friend named Lisa taught her to talk to her kids about “who are their five people?” saying “the five friends they’re with the most are who you become. So are those five people good reflections of the kind of person you want to be or are you spending time with someone you know you don’t want to be like?”
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Ben & Erin Napier’s Family Mantra Centers On a Red Bucket