Workingmother.com| august/september 2019 21
CL
OC
KW
IS
E^
FR
OM
B
OT
TO
M
R
IG
HT
:^ D
IA
NA
R
AG
LA
ND
,^ C
OU
RT
ES
Y^
(^3
)
“Family is what
rejuvenates me.
Family is what
keeps me going.
Family is what
matters to me.”
WHAT A GUY Tia’s hubby of 11
years earned a thank-you on Ins-
tagram for a “perfect” Mother’s
Day, along with the above photo.of ABC’s 1990s TGIF lineup, which propelled
child actresses Tia and her twin sister, Tamera
Mowry-Housley, to celebrity.
Just like Cocoa, Tia, 41, knows what it’s like
to be more distant from her kin than she’d prefer.
Even though she and Tamera “don’t have to work at
their relationship,” it took two deaths in the family
to get them to meet up more often than monthly:
Tamera’s college-student niece Alaina Housley, who
was killed in a mass shooting in a California bar in
November 2018, and the twins’ nearly-90-year-old
evangelist Grandma Clo mere weeks later.
“Tamera lives in Napa, and she works and I work.
But after these passings, we realized how short life
is. So she comes over every Sunday. We get our nails
done, we drink wine, she sees the kids.”
Tia sometimes heads up to Napa, and Tamera
brings down her kids, Aden, 6, and Ariah, 4, to
Southern California for all the special occasions, such
as Cree’s recent birthday celebration at Disneyland.
Tia is also tight with younger brother Tahj, 33, but
she sees much-younger brother Tavior, 26, only
about once a month.
“We’re working on it,” Tia confesses. “There were
plenty of times when I had to be like: ‘Tavior, I’m
here. You have a sister,’” she laughs. “I have to