All About Hilaria Baldwin's Parents, Kathryn Hayward and David Thomas

Hilaria Baldwin's parents moved to Mallorca, Spain, in 2011

Hilaria Baldwin is the proud daughter of parents David Thomas and Dr. Kathryn Hayward.

They raised the yoga instructor and author, who shares seven children of her own with husband Alec Baldwin, in Boston, though the family has a strong relationship with and spent a lot of time in Spain.

In December 2020, Hilaria responded to speculation that she misled the public about her heritage after a controversy over her background unfolded online.

"I was born in Boston and grew up spending time with my family between Massachusetts and Spain," she captioned a since-deleted Instagram video. "My parents and sibling live in Spain and I chose to live here, in the U.S.A."

Hilaria added that she was raised bilingual and in a household that embraced both American and Spanish culture — and she's raising her own family the same way.

Here's everything to know about Hilaria Baldwin's parents, David Thomas and Kathryn Hayward.

Her parents raised her in Boston and traveled with her to Spain frequently

Hilaria was born Hillary Lynn Hayward-Thomas to David Thomas and Kathryn Hayward in Boston on Jan. 6, 1984.

Her father lived in Boston for nearly four decades, while her mother was born and raised in Massachusetts. Hilaria and her older brother, Jeremy, were brought up in the Boston area, where she attended a private high school, The Cambridge School of Weston, in 2002.

Hilaria told The New York Times that she first visited Spain with her family when she was a baby and returned at least once a year throughout her childhood and young adulthood.

She also noted that her family spoke both English and Spanish at home, and family friends from Spain often stayed at her family's house when they visited the United States.

Her mother is a retired doctor

Hayward was born in East Longmeadow and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts, according to MassLive. She stayed in the state for her education, attending Mount Holyoke College until 1978 and later studied pre-med at Wellesley College, where she graduated in 1981. Hayward then earned her medical doctorate from the Boston University School of Medicine in 1986.

That same year, she received her Massachusetts medical license and became an intern at Carney Hospital in Dorchester.

Hayward revealed in a June 2020 interview that she was so overwhelmed with her third year of medical school while pregnant with Hilaria that she almost quit medicine as a whole. It wasn't until someone suggested she try a halftime residency instead of a full-time residency that she found the path that allowed her to be both a "good mother and a good doctor."

After finishing her residency, Hayward became an internist and primary care physician. Throughout her career, Hayward held several medical positions at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and academic roles at Harvard Medical School.

She also started to embrace integrative care and alternative medicine in her practice. In 2004, she founded Odyssey Journey, an online integrative health program. Hayward wrote on her Odyssey Journey website that experiences with patients who successfully treated symptoms with acupuncture, as well as her son Jeremy responding well to a change in diet over medication for abdominal pain, inspired her to pursue her work in medicine in a more holistic and integrative way.

In 2007, she and Thomas teamed up to co-found International Integrators, a global health and wellness initiative dedicated to furthering the "growing consciousness" about integrative health through forums, blogs and retreats. Hayward also published a book about integrative health, Odyssey Family Systems Companion Guide, in 2013.

After working in the medical field for 20 years, she eventually retired to move to Spain with Thomas in 2011.

Her father is a former lawyer

Thomas was born in Nebraska, and his family moved to New York for his father's job as a traveling auditor and corporate financial officer. They lived in Syracuse and Schenectady before settling in Scarsdale.

When Thomas was a child, his father went to Argentina for three months on business, and Thomas missed him so much that his father promised him that if he learned Spanish, he'd take him to South America someday, as Thomas recalled in a 2015 blog for International Integrators.

Thomas began taking Spanish classes in seventh grade, and true to his word, his father took the entire family to Argentina, then Chile and Peru, in Thomas' sophomore year of high school. "I was hooked on Spanish," he wrote in part. "My path in life has been heavily influenced by Spanish language and culture, and not because I have an iota of latin blood in my veins."

The following summer, Thomas took a trip to Mexico with a teacher's college program, where his love and use of the language only grew. He traveled to Spain while majoring in Spanish language and literature at Haverford College. Thomas wrote that he fell in love with the country's culture, especially its cuisine and traditions of long, multi-course meals full of conversation, crediting the experience with teaching him the importance of mindful eating.

After graduating, he worked as a corporate and real estate lawyer for Ropes & Gray and Peabody & Brown (now Nixon Peabody LLP), his bio states. Upon retiring from law in 1993, he founded CityState LLC and CityState Construction LLC, a real estate, construction and property management business, serving as its CEO from 1994 to 2012.

Hilaria told The New York Times that her father introduced her mother to Spain and Spanish culture when they first met.

They live in Spain

Thomas and Hayward have lived in Mallorca, Spain, since 2011. Hilaria expounded on her parents' residency in and love for the country.

"My family, this is where they've decided to spend their lives," she told The New York Times. "I guarantee you they are going to live there and they are going to die there."

Hilaria continued, "That's their home and that’s because this is not something new, no one put a map up on the wall and threw a dart at it and said, 'Oh, Spain sounds good.' "

She added that she considers Spain her home because that's where her family lives. "Home is where my parents are going to be," she explained. "If my parents move to China, I am going to go to China and say, 'I'm going home.' "

They gifted their first granddaughter Spanish books

In 2013, shortly after Hilaria and Alec's daughter Carmen was born, Hilaria spoke to Mom.com about raising her children to speak both English and Spanish, and how her parents helped facilitate that for them.

"I want her to be bilingual. My parents are here, visiting from Spain, so we speak to her in Spanish," she said. "They bought her a bunch of books like Are You My Mother?. In Spanish, it's Eres Tu Mi Mama? We read that to her."

Hilaria's mom didn't let her watch some of Alec's scenes in Working Girl

Hilaria previously told PEOPLE that when she was a child, she loved Working Girl, but her mother wouldn't let her watch some of Alec's scenes in the film because she was too young.

"I actually saw this really great movie when I was younger and it had this amazing actor in it: It was called Working Girl," she said in 2017. "But my mother used to fast-forward through his parts because it was, like, not appropriate for my age. I remember when I met him it brought me back because I was not allowed to watch that part."

Alec joked, "My wife saw me in a movie when she was 4 years old."

Related: Alec Baldwin and Hilaria Baldwin's Relationship Timeline

Hilaria denied speculation that she intentionally avoids talking about her upbringing

Hilaria has spoken little about her parents publicly, save for anecdotes like one in 2012 that implied their background was that of non-native English speakers.

"I had to repeat [my new last name] to my family three times: 'Baldddwinnn,' " she told Vanity Fair España at the time. "The third time they said 'Oh, we already know who it is! Why didn't you pronounce it right the first time?' "

When speaking to The New York Times in December 2020, Hilaria denied speculation that she doesn't speak much about her upbringing because she's hiding her heritage.

She explained that she left her parents' names out of her wedding announcement when she married Alec to respect their privacy and keep them from getting unwanted media attention. "Where does something stop being your story and start being someone else's?" she asked.

"The things I have shared about myself are very clear. I was born in Boston. I spent time in Boston and in Spain," Hilaria added. "My family now lives in Spain. I moved to New York when I was 19 years old and I have lived here ever since."

In early 2021, however, Hilaria apologized for not being "more clear" about her cultural background in an Instagram post, explaining that her parents raised her and her brother "with two cultures, American and Spanish," and that she feels "a true sense of belonging to both."

"The way I've spoken about myself and my deep connection to two cultures could have been better explained — I should have been more clear and I'm sorry," she wrote.

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