


Jenna Bush Hager gave some insight into her parenting strengths and weaknesses on this morning’s episode of Today, where the co-host admitted to Hoda Kotb what she and her kids have been working on in their household: patience.
“I was a good teacher, I will say that about myself, but I’m not good at teaching my own children,” she admitted during Friday’s (Sept. 1) broadcast. “Because I may be a fun mom, and a strict mom, but I ain’t a patient one.”
The comment elicited a laugh from Kotb and the audience as Bush Hager recalled a hilarious moment she shared with her three-year-old son, Hal.
“Hal’s working on patience, so I say, ‘Hal, what are we working on?'” she said. “So when I’m like, ‘Hal put on your shoes, put on your shoes!’ He says, ‘Mommy what are we working on?'”
“He says that?” Kotb asked, to which Bush Hager replied, “Oh yeah, he’s smart.”
Even Kotb agreed, Bush Hager is not the most patient person.
“Someone said something very profound to me,” Kotb explained. “You know that prayer, love is patient, love is kind, love is never boastful, all those things… If you ever want to know what your Achille’s heels are, the things you need to work on, take out the word love and put in your own name.”
Bush Hager admitted that she keeps that prayer in her “tool box,” per Kotb’s suggestion, and turns to it when she starts to feel “agitated and grumpy” around her children.
Kotb later added, “You are all those things except for patient. No, you’re not patient, but you’re all those other things.”
Bush Hager has previously joked about being a “cool mom” for her three kids. On a recent episode of Today, she admitted she was no longer allowed to clean her children’s rooms because her kids sat her down and told her she “threw away too much of their stuff.”
The co-hosts laughed when Kotb told her, “You would never be the cool mom.”
Today with Jenna and Hoda airs on weekdays at 10 a.m. ET on NBC.