Jenna Bush Hager reveals her mom Laura’s best parenting lessons

• Jenna, 41, shined a light on her mother on the Today show Wednesday 
• She looked back on her childhood in a special Mother’s Day segment
• The host included photos of herself with her mother and sister over the years  

Jenna Bush Hager has opened up about valuable lessons she learned from mother, former First Lady Laura Bush, who passed down her love of reading and ‘gently guided’ her when she was growing up.  

The Today host, 41, looked back on her childhood in a special Mother’s Day segment that aired on Wednesday’s show, which included heartwarming family photos of herself with her mom and twin sister, Barbara Bush. 

‘Everybody knows my mom’s name is Laura Bush. She was the first lady of our country, but better known to my sister, Barbara, and me as our mom, our mama,’ Jenna said. 

The Bush twins were born on November 25, 1981, and their parents, George W. and Laura Bush, raised them in Texas. They were in college when their father was elected president in 2000. 

‘My mom is otherworldly calm, and, believe me, we tested it,’ Jenna joked, recalling how her mother instilled a love of reading in her and her sister. 

Before she became first lady, Laura worked as a public school teacher and librarian. 

‘She is an avid reader and introduced Barbara and I to the wonderful feeling of falling in love with books,’ she explained. ‘She is also fiercely loyal and very protective.’

A black and white photo that was featured in the segment shows her mother curled up on the couch with a book. 

In another, she is reading to Jenna and Barbara when they were toddlers. There was also a family shot of the twins reading with their mother and father.  

‘Thank you, mom. I love you so much,’ the Read with Jenna founder concluded. 

After the emotional montage aired, Jenna sat down with Today co-anchors Savanna Guthrie and Hoda Kotb to share more insight into the women who raised them. 

Jenna explained how her mother ‘has this incredible way of just gently guiding.’

‘She didn’t use her voice as forcefully, maybe, as I do, but she would say, “Oh, there’s this great place that you should volunteer.” She wouldn’t even say that,’ she clarified. ‘She’d say, “I want to show you a place. There’s a great place.” And she would very calmly show us instead of demanding.’ 

The former first daughter shares three children — Mila, ten, Poppy, seven, and Hal, three — with her husband, Henry Hager, and she also touched her mother’s grandparenting style. 

‘It’s so fun to watch my mom and dad with my little ones. She sort of just allows all the fun and beauty of being a grandparent, which is that there really aren’t that many rules, that the kids can just be themselves,’ she said. 

In addition to Jenna’s children, Laura is also grandma to Barbara’s one-year-old daughter, Cora, whom she shares with her husband, Craig Coyne. 

The Today host’s tribute to her mom comes less than a week after she revealed the ‘gross’ comment her mother made about her bed sheets before her wedding night. 

Jenna recalled the cringe-worthy moment while she and Kotb were chatting about Gwyneth Paltrow’s candid interview on the Call Her Daddy podcast in which she dished about her famous exes.

The conversation inspired them to ask each other if they ever ‘kiss and tell.’

‘I try not to. But I’ve been married to one person for a long time, so I don’t kiss and tell about that relationship,’ Bush Hager said of her husband Henry Hager.

The couple had tied the knot nearly 15 years ago at the Bush family’s Prairie Chapel Ranch near Crawford, Texas, on May 10, 2008.

A photo of their wedding was then shown on the screen, prompting the former first daughter to reminisce about her big day.

‘Oh, thank you for putting up my wedding photo,’ she joked. ‘That was the night it all happened, y’all! Just kidding.’

Jenna went on to share how her mother mortified her and Barbara with her sexual innuendo the morning of her wedding.

‘My sister and I spent the night the night before [my husband and I] got married, and my mom came in [singing], “You’re getting married! Let’s go change the sheets!” And Barbara goes, “Eww gross, mom! This isn’t The Other Boleyn Girl!”‘ she recalled.

‘I won’t even say what she said after that,’ she added, laughing.