‘Sister Sister’ star Tia Mowry opens up about cultivating self-worth in children

Tia Mowry wants her children to feel “worthy”.

The 42-year-old actress – who has Cree, nine, and Cairo, two, with Cory Hardrict – suffered from discrimination during her younger years, and she hopes her kids don’t have to go through the same experience.

Tia said: “To this day, I’m always telling my beautiful brown-skinned girl that she is beautiful. And the same thing even with my son. I tell him how handsome he is, I tell him, you know, he is smart. Because I know what it feels like for someone to devalue your worth, and I don’t want my children to ever, ever, ever, feel that. And not have the strength, or the foundation, to not believe it. To believe that they are worthy.”

Tia can still remember having lots of insecurities when she rose to fame as a child on the sitcom ‘Sister, Sister’.

The actress told ‘Unfiltered’: “I would feel insecure about my hair because being young and being in this business, I never saw girls like me. I never saw girls that, you know, were embracing their curls or I never saw curly hair being portrayed as beautiful.”

Tia appeared on ‘Sister, Sister’ alongside her identical twin Tamera.

But the actress started stepping out on her own and forging her own identity as she got older.

She said: “If I were very honest with you, in the beginning it was hard and it was more about not allowing society to define who we were and are today and allowing us to evolve into the people that we really are.

“Once we were able to do that, I feel very blessed that people have been able to accept who we are as individuals.”