In July 2025, Tia Mowry faced a lot of backlash over what she thinks it means to be a single mom. Now, another one of her parenting opinions has sparked a debate. During a recent interview with Parents, the Sister, Sister star opened up about her parenting style and revealed that she doesn’t think her kids’ happiness is her responsibility.
Of course, in her eyes, parenting still comes with a lot of other responsibilities. But for her, the priority seems to be raising her kids to be independent, rather than co-dependent.
She explained her stance to the publication.
During her interview with Parents, 47-year-old Tia admitted that her approach to parenting might be different from what some people are used to. “I think growing up, it was definitely a cultural thing where it’s like, ‘My house, my rules,'” she told the publication. For her kids, she wants something different. She wants them to feel totally comfortable expressing themselves and speaking up for themselves.
That means that she doesn’t think it’s her “job” to make her kids happy, but she does think it’s her responsibility to “guide them.”
“I don’t think it is your job to make your kids happy,” she said. “I think that it is your job to keep your kids safe, nurture them, guide them, but they have to learn on their own how to make themselves happy, because we don’t want to create co-dependency.”
In addition, she wants her kids to feel comfortable saying ‘no.’
Tia is mom to 14-year-old Cree and 7-year-old Cairo, whom she shares with ex-husband Cory Hardrict. She recalled a time when initially, it was hard to hear her daughter say “no” — but it also showed her that promoting independence really is so important.
Cairo went to the school nurse one day after getting hit by a ball. The school nurse asked Cairo if she wanted to talk to her mom about it, and she said, “No.” Though Tia “desperately wanted to speak to her and hear her voice to make sure that she was OK,” she realized the power of honoring her daughter’s request.
“I had to allow this opportunity for her to gain independence and say, ‘I got this,'” Tia said.
Last month, some people were pretty offended when Tia called herself a ‘single mom.’
Since Tia maintains a positive co-parenting relationship with her ex-husband, some people have argued that she’s not a single mom. Tia responded to the backlash in a lengthy Instagram post. “Being a ‘single mom’ doesn’t always mean a mom doing it all alone without the father present in their kids’ lives at all,” she wrote. “I recognize that archetype is extremely difficult, and I truly empathize. But what often gets overlooked is the nuance of what being a single mom can actually mean.”
Given that she is single and “the only parent present day to day” in her home, she thinks using the term is appropriate. But others argued that a “single parent/mom is one who does it alone.”
