Mina Starsiak Hawk Gets Real About Being a Working Mom

Heavy/Getty Mina Starsiak Hawk.

HGTV’s Mina Starsiak Hawk opened up about being a working mom and managing mom guilt on the latest episode of her “Mina AF” podcast.

The “Good Bones” host and her husband Steve share two kids – Jack, 4, and Charlie, 2. The couple has been open about employing a nanny since their son was around six months old.

“They genuinely love our children and want to teach them and make them feel special,” Mina said in the episode, “Managing Mom Guilt.”

Mina explained on the podcast that she usually returns home at 5:30 p.m., but Steve questioned why she couldn’t relieve their nanny earlier since she is self-employed. This brought up the issue of quality versus quantity of time.

As she explained in the episode, they were coming from two different perspectives. Mina revealed that she had a nanny growing up following her parents’ divorce, while Steve had working parents with no outside help.

For Steve, “that time just being present is what was important,” Mina said on “Mina AF.” But Mina brought up her 20-minute drive to school everyday with Jack.

“That 20 minutes is more special to me than the three hours, 4 hours in the evening because it’s him and I, one-on-one,” the “Rock the Block” alum explained in the episode. “We talk about the weirdest, wildest stuff. He doesn’t have his iPad. There’s not a TV on.”

“I’ve really had to communicate with Steve that your needs, and guilts, pleasures with being with them, whatever it is,” Mina added in the episode. “I need to understand but I also need you to not put on me because I don’t feel like I’m missing something coming home at 5:30 instead of 4. I don’t feel like they feel less loved or nurtured by me. And if you feel they are, then that’s a whole nother conversation we need to have but that’s something that’s regularly been occurring.”

This is not the first time she has discussed the guilt that comes with being a working mom, calling out “social norms” in a March 2022 Instagram post.

“Not only will my kids know how incredibly loved they are, they will know a strong work ethic,” she captioned a picture of her kids drawing together. “I don’t work because I HAVE to. I work because it is one the the many things that fulfills my life along with these two and my husband. And a happy, fulfilled parent is the best option for our family.”

While she admitted to having “zero guilt” over hiring a nanny, she added in the post, “Now if I could just get over the guilt everyone else feels on my behalf that sneaks in every so often.”

Mina Starsiak Hawk on Working Through ‘Misalignment’ of Parenting Styles With Her Husband

Mina and Steve are also working through the “misalignment” of their parenting styles, as she explained on “Mina AF.”

“Steve feels like anytime Jack wants to play, he says yes because he’s taking all this baggage from his dad’s not there. His mom’s not there. His sister’s not there,” she explained in the episode. “They’ve all passed, so he wants to give our kids every ounce of joy and happiness he possibly can. And saying ‘let’s work on independent play’ or ‘I made a second child for you, go play with your sister;’ he is in it and it has got to be exhausting. And they know he will say yes, he has a very hard time saying no.”

Steve lost his parents in 2018, according to their obituaries. His mother Sally died in May and his father Richard died that November. In March 2020, Mina announced on Instagram that her sister-in-law, Stefanie, had died unexpectedly at 31 years old.

Mina explained in the episode her concerns their children will act differently around the two of them, given their different approaches.

“That’s an ongoing thing because it is so layered, specifically with him because of the loss he’s experienced but even pulling out the loss, the differences in parenting techniques and how you mesh them and support each other, sometimes when you don’t necessarily agree is an ongoing conversation with us,” Mina added on “Mina AF.”

Steve reflected on the loss of his sister a year after her death. He shared a photo on Instagram of Stefanie sitting in front of a computer with a burrito.

“Today makes the 1 year anniversary of Stefanie being reunited with my Mom and Dad,” he wrote in the caption. “There is never a day that passes that we don’t think about Stefanie. With Jack and Charlie growing so quickly I wish she was around to see them become such wonderful humans. Losing a loved one is very hard but I am thankful for the years and memories we shared together.”

Mina Starsiak Hawk Questions the Origin of Her Parenting Actions

Mina broke down her thought process, explaining on “Mina AF” that she wonders if her actions are a result of childhood trauma.

“Is what I’m saying because I’ve thought through this and this is genuinely how I feel and this is what’s good and what’s healthy? Or am I saying this and engaging with this in a way because of some of the negative ways I was raised?” she questioned on the podcast.

While she said she thinks she has a “good balance”, she explained that it is constantly something she is working through.

She added in the episode, “Am I completely wrong here? Should I not be saying this? Should I not be doing this? My childhood was crazy, Steve’s was loving and quote-unquote normal. Is he right and I’m wrong? I know that doesn’t make sense, but that’s the thought process.”

While Mina is on good terms with her mother and “Good Bones” costar, Karen E. Laine, that was not always the case. She spoke about their complicated dynamic during an appearance on “At Home with Linda & Drew Scott” . In the episode, she revealed she stopped visiting Laine after she married her second husband.

“I didn’t see her for a while because I took issue with her husband,” she told the “Property Brothers” star and his wife. “I was probably 10ish, so that was the first of a period of kind of like ups and downs in our relationships. But my brothers, you know, they’re boys, it’s just different, but they always kept going.”

While they experienced a “stabilizing time” during her mother’s third marriage, a custody battle in her late teens once again caused the pair to drift apart, she explained in the episode.

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