Jenna Bush Hager surprised the audience when she revealed that her kids don’t always call her “mom.”
In a Thursday, November 9, episode of Today With Hoda & Jenna, Bush Hager, 41, joked to her twin sister, Barbara Pierce Bush, that the name “Barbara” was “making a comeback.”
“I’ve noticed in the parks in Brooklyn where sort of old is new, there’s a lot of Maeves. There’s some Doloreses. I’ve heard a lot of ‘Come on Dolores.’ I haven’t heard ‘Come on Barbara,’ ever,” Barbara shared.
When Jenna replied, “unless it’s your husband or your child, Barbara responded saying that her daughter never calls her by her first name. (She shares daughter Cora, 2, with husband Craig Coyne.)
Jenna shocked her twin sister when she then revealed that her “children call [her] Jenna.” She shares son Hal, 4, and daughters Mila, 10, and Poppy, 8, with husband Henry Hager.
Barbara laughed and joked that that’s something Jenna needs to “unpack with them.”
“It is something for me to unpack with them,” Jenna shared, adding that recently Hal FaceTimed her and said, “‘Hello, Jenna! Hello Jenna!’”
Jenna added: “I take it as a compliment because it is my name.”
This is hardly the first time Jenna has gotten candid about her kids or spoken about their unlikely traditions. In September, she revealed on an episode of the NBC show that her mom, Laura Bush, was sent dirt to put under Jenna’s bed when she delivered her children so her kids could be “born on Texas soil. Judging by her facial expression, southern dirt was not a gift she was expecting. (Jenna was born in Dallas and spent most of her childhood in Austin before moving to Washington D.C. when her father, George W. Bush, became president.)
Although her kids aren’t growing up in the south, Jenna shared that they “do have southern accents.”
“Once I start to have a margarita and put on some Willie Nelson, I’m a whole new person,” she joked at the time. “I’m just gonna put a little recording in their ears when they sleep — not in their ears because I’d hate to damage them — [that says] ‘y’all, y’all, y’all.’”
Jenna has also expressed her desire to expand her family.
“It’s sort of time for me to have another baby,” she said on an August episode of Today With Hoda & Jenna. “I’d like to have another … We’re not.”
Jenna explained that Henry, who she married in 2008, is not on board.
“Henry put his foot down. He says we have three healthy babies,” she shared, adding her age and previous “health stuff” were some reasons why he didn’t think it was a good idea.
In April 2019, Jenna revealed on an episode of her talk show that she suffered from an ectopic pregnancy before she had her first child. She had to go into emergency surgery and felt like the experience was “very isolating” for her. “There is joy and there is pain,” she explained at the time.
