Iris Clark (Host): Hi, everybody. Welcome back to For The Girls Podcast with The Valentina Campaign. I'm your host, Iris Clark, and I'm so excited to have on Ellie Hardy, a recurring guest and her mother and our founder, Dylan Hardy, who I love so much and I'm so excited to have on here today. So Dylan, if you could just give a little intro on yourself. Obviously, you founded the Valentina campaign. So yeah, anything you want to introduce about yourself.

Dylan Hardy: Great. Yes, I'm so excited to be here today. This is my first podcast. I'm a little nervous. But, you know, my passion for this, for The Valentina Campaign, is so strong. So, it's easy for me to talk about it. But today, I thought it'd be great if Ellie and I could come on together and talk about, I guess, me parenting her and some of the things that we dealt with and what I did right, maybe what I did wrong, what I feel is important when it comes to parenting girls in general, and then kind of helping them through their years, those challenging years between nine and-- well, we're still in kind of challenging years right now, even though she's 18. So yeah, I'm just excited to just share our story and how it really feeds into and helped me put this idea of The Valentina Campaign and bring it to life.

Host: Yay. Well, okay, I'm thinking you're just ready to get right into the topic, which is Dylan and Ellie's little relationship, which I love them together. And I think that we can just start with Ellie growing up and how close you guys were, like how your relationship was, that kind of thing.

Ellie Hardy: You want to go first? I want to see your point of view from it.

Dylan Hardy: Well, let me just preface this by saying I do have another daughter. Her name is Keeley. She lives in Boston and she's 25, so she's a bit older and two different personalities, two different girls. And I think that the challenging thing is you have to adjust. So, Keeley was one type of animal. We had our share of drama when she was in high school. But then when Ellie came along, Ellie, she was a bit easier when she was younger. Emotional and I keep joking that she really didn't turn into a teenager until she was like 17, 18. But the biggest thing for me with her is I tried to stay consistent. So, she knew kind of what her boundaries were, what to expect from me. And the hardest thing, I think, for me is keeping my mouth shut and just listening to her. And I think that's a big part of parenting is just listening to them, even though it's crazy and they're screaming a lot of times and emotional. I found that as hard as it was, if I just kind of stayed in control and listened to her and stayed consistent with my message, that seemed to work for us. Most of the time, it did. It did.

Ellie Hardy: I think definitely kind of like what Keeley would say, or you would ask me, like if I would have something to talk to my mom about, it was like, "Okay, do you need advice or do you just need to rant? Do you just need to get it out?" And so, there would be times I think you would know when I needed advice or I needed to just rant and just get all my stuff off my chest.

Dylan Hardy: Let me say, she ranted a lot. She ranted a ton. And sometimes it got out of control, you know, because there's a lot of hormones and the emotions and she was just kind of out of control. But the one thing I always said to her is, "You're entitled to have these feelings. You are 100% entitled to be angry, to be sad to be frustrated. But what you're not entitled to do is behave this way." That was kind of my go-to every time this would happen, is you're entitled to be frustrated, you're entitled to be mad, but you're not entitled to scream and yell and slam the door and say ugly things, you know, the things that teenagers do.

The interesting thing, and Ellie and I just talked about this a lot, because when you have multiple children, and I have two daughters and they're both high maintenance, I would say. With Keeley, Keeley and I, we had some knockdown drag outs on, you know, we had lots of little arguments, and it didn't faze Keeley. I could be mad at her and disappointed, and she would just dig her heels. That's her personality. But with Ellie, I had no reason to get mad and scream at her and do that, because I learned early on if I just kind of pulled away and not really give her the silent treatment, but just kind of back off and let things cool, that would destroy her. She hated the fact that I was disappointed in her, "Mom, you can't be disappointed. You can be mad, but you can't be disappointed. And I think our personalities are somewhat similar, which kind of good, kind of bad. I think just kind of knowing how to, even to this day, even though you got to change the way you parent as your children get older, even to this day, when we talk or, you know, we don't fight very often, but you're like, "Are you disappointed?" That's kind of her go-to as far as, you know, how she feels.

Ellie Hardy: For sure. I'm mostly definitely, "Are you disappointed? Are you upset?" But yeah, when she doesn't talk to me or I know she's upset, I can't do it. I'm like, "Nope, you're going to talk to me. We're going to get this resolved. I cannot spend like an hour not talking to you.

Dylan Hardy: That's true.

Ellie Hardy: And I don't know how you can either.

Dylan Hardy: Sometimes quiet's good. Sometimes quiet works for the situation. But Ellie, like I said, she didn't really turn into a teenager until she was 17, 18. But I think the other thing that I did, and it wasn't like a calculated strategy that I had, but I think it was just my relationship with her, Ellie has always been very open about talking to me. She knew that if she had an issue or got into trouble or did something, she could always call me and I would not-- well, I did punish at times.

Ellie Hardy: Yeah. But I was never like scared if I did something so bad or I knew I messed up so bad I was never scared to tell my mom or hide it. I've never felt like I had to hide anything from you, which I like, because I feel like sometimes I've seen it firsthand with my friends and their relationships with their parents, and they feel like they have to hide everything. When your parents are stricter, it just makes them rebel even more. And so, some of my friends, they're forced to just keep stuff from their parents. So, I'm glad that I have a relationship that I can just be open and honest and not feel like I'm going to get punished or screamed at for everything that I do. I feel most of the times you just give me advice. And you tell me what I did that was wrong and you tell me what to do in the next situation, what would happen.

So, I think that's the biggest thing, because I just feel like when you're screaming at a kid, nothing's going to come out of that, when you're just yelling at them and you're telling them, "Oh, you messed up so bad. I think if your kid is able to come to you-- like I'm so willing to just come to you and talk to you, I think it's because of she's always been so just willing to understand the situation and just help me. She's just going to help me through it. She's never going to be like, "No, you're in this on your own. You're just going to do it by yourself." And I think that's something that's been a big thing. It's like she's never judged for anything bad that I've done. She's always just helped.

Dylan Hardy: I just thought about this. There was one thing that Ellie said to me one time that it literally kind of like stopped me on my tracks. I think it was when she was really young, like 15. She looked at me and she goes, "Mom, if I don't talk to you, who am I going to talk to?: If I can't talk to my mother about this, who's going to really be honest with me and give me the advice?" And she would say, "That's your job. Your job is to listen to me and talk to me and hear what I have to say." So, I did try to do that, try to listen and bite my tongue. And parents always say, "I know what it's like. I've been there. I was in high school once. I dealt with this, I dealt with that." And to a certain extent, it is true. We've all been to high school. We've all dealt with drama with girls and guys. But it's a whole entirely different ball game now. It's almost like we can relate on one level, but on the other level, there's no way that we are equipped to speak on what girls and boys go through now with the introduction of social media and the pressures of all of that that goes with it. So, it's kind of been a learning curve for me as well.

Host: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, it's hard to adapt to times that are so, so different from when our parents were in high school. It's just so different. So, it's hard, I can imagine, to parent a child going through this digital age and dealing with all the things that come with online relationships and friendships, and having to navigate that when you didn't have to deal with this at all when you were in high school.

Dylan Hardy: Exactly.

Host: Yeah. So, I can imagine it's hard.

Dylan Hardy: Yeah. And you know what's interesting is-- So, there's six years between the two of you, six years between you and Keeley?

Ellie Hardy: No, seven.

Dylan Hardy: Seven. And Keeley, you know, she had a great childhood. Phones were just being introduced when she was like a freshman and when we moved to Charleston. And her childhood was completely different from Ellie's. She had a phone, but it was really for safety, so she could call. Whereas the apps didn't start being introduced until you came along, and it completely changed the landscape of their experiences. And Keeley will say, "I'm so glad I didn't have a phone."

But with that being said, social media has impacted young girls, you know, nine to 18 and maybe even younger. But now, you see it with Keeley's age being 25, and even though it didn't impact her in high school, it impacts young girls now that are just finished with college or didn't go to college and are starting their careers and trying to make it on their own and there's just an unimaginable amount of pressure that social media can put on, even young adult girls. There's a lot of good out there with social media, but there's also, you know...

Host: Totally. No, I totally understand that. As Ellie entered high school and even middle school probably, how did the dynamic go with social media? How did you guys go about that? Because I know for me in middle school and high school, if you didn't get Snapchat, then you would kind of get left out of things, because everyone would text on Snapchat, like that kind of thing. And it's hard to navigate that kind of stuff. So, how did you go about that, in that way?

Dylan Hardy: I don't really remember. To be honest, I don't remember when you ended up-- when did Snapchat...?

Ellie Hardy: I think it was probably 7th grade I got Snapchat. And looking back on it, I will never let my kids get Snapchat until they are a sophomore in high school or when they're allowed to start driving and I need their location. But the social media has definitely played a big part into all the issues that I think I've had to deal with. Everything happens through social media. So, from your point of view, what do you think?

Dylan Hardy: Well, with Snapchat, it took me a while to kind of understand exactly what it was used for and the disappearing message. I'm like, "What do you mean it just disappears?" That's impossible. It's out there somewhere. I think we always just talked about, you know, using it to maybe do fun things and to never, ever, you know, do anything that was malicious or ugly or undermine a friend or something like that.

But looking back on it, and I know young parents now, they really wait as long as they can to give their child a phone and give them access to social media. And I think I probably could have held out on that longer, because now when she says she had it in seventh grade, I'm like, "What was I thinking?" But I don't know. Does it make sense for me to say that it was early on and it was just starting so I didn't know the dangers of it.

Ellie Hardy: Yeah. It was very innocent. At the time when we had it, I would say things didn't get super bad until freshman year of high school when I had it. That's when bullying started really badly, and you and Keeley saw that first hand on what it was like to get those nasty messages, and that's when it started getting bad. But I would say in 7th and 8th grade, I would use it just to communicate with my girlfriends, when we would all want to hang out, we'd just text on a group chat on Snapchat and meet up on our bikes. It was never anything we would use it in a malicious way. I didn't even think I'd talk to boys at the time. I think it was simply just for my girlfriends.

Dylan Hardy: Definitely through middle school, it was very innocent, you know?

Ellie Hardy: Yeah, very, very innocent. But then, social media takes a whole different turn when you get older, because you're being put in these situations where people are saying things to you or people might say things to you or you're getting yourself involved in all these different crazy things. And so, social media, it can bring positive things, but it also brings a lot of negativity. Just like when you go on social media, you have the power to post anything you want. You are sitting behind a screen, no one can tell you to not post anything. And so, I think it almost goes back to Valentina. So many girls have struggled, like they're sitting in their room and there's this person sitting behind a screen just sending them the nastiest messages, just telling them, "You're this," "You're that," "You're not good enough," all of these things, that's going to take a toll on someone's mental health, especially on a young girl. Like us girls, like us young girls in this generation, at least for me, and I know a lot of my friends, we take everything to heart and especially when it's being said to you. Social media is so important in this generation. So when it's your whole life is on social media, and you feel like you can't escape it in a way, it's very hard.

So, I think there's a part where I've had my moments. I've gone in and deleted every single snap, every single Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, all of it. But at the same time, you know, in a couple days, you're like, "Okay. I don't have anyone to talk to. That's my main form of communication." And so, that's the thing that I'm still trying to work on. "Okay, I don't want Snapchat." I feel like I'm getting to the age where it's not necessary, but that's still where everyone's communicating.

So, it's kind of hard to find an in between. But I definitely think there will get to a point where Snapchat, everyone will kind of start to just start texting and not really use Snapchat anymore.

Dylan Hardy: Do you think that?

Ellie Hardy: Yeah, I think so, at least like in my grid. I hope I'm not married with kids and I'm still snapping. I don't think people will really use Snapchat in a couple years. I think everyone will kind of grow their way out of it. When people start to realize, "Okay, the only people that I need to be texting are the people that have my phone number." I don't need to be snapping random people that add me on Quick Add. I think it's silly, honestly. Looking back at it now, I definitely think Snapchat and TikTok, it's fun, but it's silly. If you look at it, those are the least important things in the world. And that's what consumes so many people's lives, but it's literally an app on your phone. People spend so much time worrying about these apps and worrying about what people are saying to them, when you don't even know who's saying these things about you. They're just random people behind a screen saying these things. And so, I just think social media is something that's taken so seriously. That's my vision for it. At least for my generation, it will be kind of pushed out of the picture, the Snapchat.

Dylan Hardy: But let me ask you this. So, Ellie's finishing up her second semester as a freshman in college. Did you notice that when you went to school, did you use Snapchat less? And more texting and stuff with your new friends? Or how did that play into college?

Ellie Hardy: I'll definitely say, with my girlfriends, I'm a huge texter. But guys--

Dylan Hardy: Not to her family, but to her girlfriends.

Ellie Hardy: Yeah, I have a really bad--

Dylan Hardy: Oh my gosh.

Ellie Hardy: Well, not with you. I always call you.

Dylan Hardy: No, with me as well.

Ellie Hardy: I always respond to your texts. But when Keeley texts me the most random stuff, I always have a hard time responding, because I'll only go on to answer you, and then I will never respond to anyone else.

Dylan Hardy: I guess that's a good thing.

Ellie Hardy: I would say with my girlfriends, it's definitely like we text. We are fine with not snapping. But when it comes into your guy friends or a boyfriend, it's definitely like Snapchat was used. And I wish this wasn't how it is. But I feel like, you know, when you meet a guy, it's so normal for them to be like, "Oh, let me get your snap. Give me your snap." But I think there's definitely going to be a day where It should be like, "Let me get your number." You know what I mean? Where did that go? I don't want to just like send pictures of my face all day. I want to talk to you. You know what I mean?

Host: Yeah.

Dylan Hardy: Is that coming with maturity, you think, just getting older?

Ellie Hardy: Yeah, I think it's definitely coming with maturity. And I obviously have Snapchat right now. And I told you I remember I deleted it for a couple of weeks. I was just not on social media. And I think, in that amount of time, I realized, I was like, "Okay, this is just something I'm going to have to grow out of." This is where all my friends communicate. Eventually, it will go. But I definitely think I found myself using Snapchat more when trying to make plans with your guy friends or just people who aren't on texts as much. And I think it's definitely guys. Guys never are texters. I've never ran across a guy friend or a boyfriend that's a texter.

Dylan Hardy: Oh, they don't? They don't text?

Ellie Hardy: No. And it makes me mad. I'm like, "Why don't you want to text? I don't want to..." You know what I mean?

Dylan Hardy: Interesting. Yeah. Two things. Well, back to high school. So, I knew taking Ellie's phone away was like cutting off one of her fingers. Any kind of punishment that involved removing her phone would create World War III. But, basically, after you kind of calmed down, got control of your emotions and didn't have her phone, I mean, I would say, if I took it away for three hours or four hours, you would come to me and you'd be like, "Oh my gosh, I got so much done. It's so nice not having my phone next to me checking it a hundred times."

Ellie Hardy: It's so nice. Whenever I'm in my dorm by myself and I just want to get stuff done, my phone has to go away. I will put my phone in a drawer. I cannot go on my phone. It's crazy to look at it and be like, "That little device is so distracting." It takes up so much of a person's life. You know what I mean?

Dylan Hardy: Right. Well, I think too maybe it's hard for me, but maybe not for other parents. There's dangers with some of the social media as well. Remember one random night we were together and you got that picture from some strange--

Ellie Hardy: Oh, yeah.

Dylan Hardy: So, I think it's really important for parents to be educated and know the parameters to put on their phones.

Ellie Hardy: And when I had gotten sent a very inappropriate picture from some random guy , this is when I was in middle school, I remember this, I was literally like in middle school. And I was like, "What is this?" And I remember showing you and I was horrified, I was so upset. And I'm sure that's when you realized like, "Oh, God."

Dylan Hardy: That was. That was kind of when I'm like, "Okay, wait a minute. How did this happen?" So, we had to go in and figure out the settings.

Ellie Hardy: I was just trying to find out who even is this? How did he even get on my phone? What is going on? But that was like, once you have Snapchat and you're growing up, you realize there are just gross people like that in the world that are going to just do that. You're going to find stuff like that all across social media. That's just what it is. People are going to post stuff like that and send things like that. And I just think that's something that, just personally, I don't get when I see a ten-year-old or a twelve-year-old walking around a big iPhone. I just don't get it. I think that those , if I could go back and not have a phone in middle school or even in high school, I would do it. It just causes so many issues. I genuinely think most of my anxiety that I have stems from my phone, because I'm constantly worried about what everyone else is doing. Why am I not getting invited to this? Why am I not going to this? And then, when you take a step back and you're like, "Wait, I'm putting my whole life on pause for a phone." There are so many other things to do. You live in this amazing area. Why not go out and just do stuff. I just feel like it's sad to look around and see how much technology has just taken over everything in a way. You know what I mean?

Dylan Hardy: Well, the other thing too is when you look at the statistics for young girls, and the percentage of girls that feel left out, I mean, that is the worst feeling. Even as adults, sometimes you feel like if you go on social media and you see something, we can process it and it doesn't really impact us, but the amount of young girls that are home alone on a weekend and just feel like they don't fit in or they don't belong and feel left out and are lonely, it just breaks your heart. Because I've always said that those years are supposed to be some of your best years, before you get into adulthood, where we all know that's not fun all the time. And that's another thing that I wanted, that really fed into this Valentina campaign and just bringing together a community of girls that maybe they're not athletes and maybe they're not strong in academia, and they haven't found their group, you know, if we can just build a community of girls and give them a community that they feel like they do belong, and then address these insecurities that they feel that stem both from unrealistic beauty expectations with society and on social media. And we've come a long way, which is so wonderful. But that's another one of our goals of The Valentina Campaign, is to make sure there's no girls that are lonely and left out.

Host: I love that, and I love this entire conversation. It was so insightful to hear your guys thoughts and how it was for Ellie growing up. And especially social media, I love that we focused on that. So, if you guys could each share one piece of advice you'd give to mother-daughter duos to either stay close or have a strong relationship, have a strong bond, be able to be honest, what is that one piece of advice you'd give a mom or a daughter to make them feel like they can be more connected to their mom?

Ellie Hardy: I would say my two main things of advice, my first one would be just be honest. Do not hide anything. If you lie and continue to lie, you're just going to dig yourself deeper and deeper. And if you're honest, They'll understand and they're just going to help you, because that's all your mom or your dad or whoever wants. They just want the best for you.

And the other thing is, and this has been a difficult lesson to learn, but this is their first time living too. This is their first time. They are still trying to learn how to parent different situations and learn different things. When me and my mom would get in an argument and she'd be telling me something and I was like, "Okay, I just don't want to listen to her," but this is her first time living too. She's still trying to figure out her way and how to deal with certain situations. So, I think keeping those two things in my head have definitely helped me and I think it would help another, yeah.

Dylan Hardy: The honesty thing is so key because it saves you so much time, because Ellie would come to me and be honest, just lay it all out for me. So, I knew right then, "Okay, I have the facts. I know what's happened. Okay, here's how I kind of help her solve the problem," or "Here's the advice." And I don't have to spend three hours digging the truth out of her to figure out exactly what the situation is.

But I think consistency, there's no gray area. Ellie knows what she's going to get out of me, what's going to bother me, what's not going to bother me when I'm going to say yes, when I'm going to say no.

Ellie Hardy: It's very easy to tell.

Dylan Hardy: Yeah. She knows that. So, I think consistency, it didn't come easy to me, because I'm always like wanting to get my point across and, "Hey, I can tell you what you need to do." But I think closing my mouth and listening. And I do that a lot with you. I mean, she'll call me. She says, "Mom, can I just vent for a while, vent for a few minutes?" And I'm like, "Okay." And I'll literally sit there. I've timed it once where it was like 12 minutes, I just sat there.

Ellie Hardy: You timed it?

Dylan Hardy: I did. I think we all want to be heard. At the end of the day, we want our voices to be heard. And a lot of times just listening, the problem will solve itself. And you have to tailor it to each child to know the parenting style. But Ellie, even Keeley, they eventually get it. They eventually come around to, okay, they figure it out without me having to shove it down their throats. But I think, you know, consistency and how you discipline and how you react to things and then listening, just listening to their story and try to understand their feelings.

 And I used to always say we're all looking at everything else, what everybody else is doing, or everyone else is doing, or what's going on. And I would always say, look inward. Okay, listen to that inward voice. Quit looking outward, look inward. Because I think someone just said that not everyone has an inner voice. Do you have an inner voice, Iris?

Host: I totally have an inner voice.

Dylan Hardy: That screams sometimes. That's one thing I like. Quit looking at everyone else. This is your journey. This is your only time. You know, this is your only life. One life, one chance. And I always equate it to a book. Let's say you have 90 chapters in your book. You're literally on chapter 18. Look at the rest of the book that is going to be written, which is your life story.

Ellie Hardy: But I definitely think the main key is honesty. Honesty. You just have to be honest. Even like with yourself or with your friends, you just have to be honest. You're not going to get anywhere if you just lie and you're never going to get any help because this woman right here, she knows what's best for me. So if I'm not honest with her, if I keep stuff from her, she'll never be able to help me through what I'm going through. So, I think that definitely just being honest and not beating around the bush, just lay it all flat, because they've heard it all before. So, just lay it out and they'll get you through it.

Host: Yeah. I love that. It was so fun to hear all your guys' thoughts on everything, and see you guys together, and I love that you're reunited. And I think that's the end of this episode. And I appreciate you guys both for coming on. It was so fun. And I hope to see you guys on here together again soon.

Dylan Hardy: Oh, we will.

Ellie Hardy: We will, for sure.

Dylan Hardy: We're going into a new phase now with her turning 19 in July. So, we'll have to check in. We'll have to get Keeley on here. That'll be a doozy.

Ellie Hardy: Oh gosh. That would be.

Host: Yes, I'd love to have all three of you guys. That'd be so fun.

Dylan Hardy: Oh, my goodness. Well, thank you, Iris. Thank you for listening and letting us share our good, bad, ugly, good parenting, bad parenting.

Host: Of course. 📍 That's why we're here. All honest and real conversations here. So, thank you all for listening. And thank you, Dylan and Ellie, for coming on today. And we'll see you next time. Bye, guys!