‘Home Town’ Star Erin Napier Recalls Being the ‘Odd Ball’ and ‘Ugly Duckling’ Growing Up

Erin Napier is sharing a bit about being the “odd ball” and “ugly duckling” as a child in response to a viral parenting post on Facebook. The Home Town star identified with a post now shared by more than 27,000 people on social media by mom Lindsey Barker, who revealed that her 7-year-old daughter, Paisley, was having a difficult time finding girls to play with at recess.

“I ask her who she plays with on the playground…” Barker wrote. “She says nobody. I say why? She says: ‘Well I asked these two girls and they told me no. Then I asked these two girls and they said no too. So I just sat under the tree.’ And nobody came.” She continued in the lengthy post that parents need to instill in their children they need to be a “friend to everyone,” adding, “You must tell them: THIS IS HOW YOU’RE GONNA ACT AND THIS IS HOW YOU AINT GONNA ACT. period. Your kids are meanies because you’ve let them be.”

Napier, who shares daughters, Helen, 3, and Mae, 2 months, with her husband and Home Town costar, Ben Napier, agreed wholeheartedly on Instagram, writing on her Story, “I was the odd ball sitting alone. The ugly duckling. I desperately wanted someone to want to sit by me on the bus. It shapes the character of the adults we become and in that way, it wasn’t all bad for me.”

She continued of meeting her husband, “I fell in love with Ben Napier because in college, I watched as he went to sit beside the person eating alone. I needed him when I was younger. I married him because of his character in those kinds of situations. And a million other reasons.” The HGTV star advised her followers, “Teach your babies to look for the loner. It will change both of them, forever.”

Erin and Ben opened up about their love story earlier this month on the At Home With Linda and Drew Scott Podcast, saying that just six days after Erin interviewed Ben for the University of Mississippi yearbook, the two “decided to get married.” The two married in 2008 and added that their secret to a long-lasting marriage was focusing on little ways of caring for one another every day, from making coffee for one another to writing little notes around the house. “It’s those little things that — I mean the big shows of affection are fun too but in the last year … we haven’t been able to pull that stuff off,” Ben said at the time.