HGTV’s Mina Starsiak Hawk Opens Up About Relationship With Mom Karen E. Laine: Not ‘on Good Terms’

HGTV star Mina Starsiak Hawk and her mom, Karen E. Laine, appear to have a picture-perfect relationship while starring on their hit show, Good Bones. However, as the show nears its final episodes, it seems their mother-daughter relationship may have suffered.  

Mina, 38, opened up about the “current state of affairs” within her family during the Monday, August 28, episode of her podcast, “Mina AF,” claiming that their relationship is “challenging.” 

“We all put our big kid pants on and pretend to be nice … then go back to our corners of the universe and talk s–t about each other,” she added. “My mom and I aren’t in a great place. My brother Tad and I aren’t in a great place. My brother William and I are in a kind of like nonexistent place. It’s complicated without even being complicated. We don’t really engage much and the last engagement wasn’t super positive, and that was maybe a year ago.”

Mina – who shares children Jack and Charlotte with husband Steve Hawk – went on to say that her mother is not “involved in [her children’s] life on a regular basis” and that they simple “coexist.”

“We went on family vacation together and everyone is pleasant enough around each other. And is that the good thing, the right thing, or is that all just being wildly dysfunctional?”

“Not only do my mom and my two brothers not fall into that category of being involved in their life on a regular basis, we’re also not on good terms,” she said.

With Jack’s fifth birthday party fast approaching, Mina was left to decide whether to include her family members, contemplating whether it would affect her children. 

“Will they even notice who’s here and who’s not here? There’s going to be a bunch of animals. That’s all they care about,” she continued. “Having to say ‘This is why you’re not invited’ opens up a line of communication to discuss that, and I really don’t want to do that. That sounds exhausting right now. So again, I fall back to ‘Do I just invite everyone because it’s the path of least resistance?’ But it’s what we’ve all always done and it hasn’t gotten us anywhere better.”

“I do know if we all keep doing the same thing, it’s going to keep being the same,” she said. “And I don’t think any of us are happy with it being the same.”

Mina and Karen, 60, launched their home renovation company, Two Chicks and a Hammer, in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 2008. They went on to star in seven seasons of their HGTV show, which premiered in 2016. Karen ultimately retired in 2019 and went on to make smaller appearances in the series, while Mina announced in August 2023 that the show would be coming to an end following its eighth season.