Jenna & Barbara Bush Share Lessons From Their Parents

Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush are celebrating the beauty of parenthood with their latest children’s book, I Loved You First, out on March 25, 2025.

“This one really is the type of book that you would give a new mom,” Jenna tells Parents. “I would have given it to Barbara, who just had a baby, because it’s all about looking at the world through your kid’s eyes and just being delighted.'”

Families will count constellations, imagine shapes in clouds, and view hiking canyons through Ramona Kaulitzki’s nature-inspired illustrations.

“We also wanted it to be a reminder to parents and kids of the beauty around us and how seeing the world through your children’s eyes can really remind you of presence and the magic that’s in the every day,” says Barbara.

Kids will also be encouraged to embrace how special they are. “We loved creating an excuse to just tell kids, before they go to sleep, how loved they are,” adds Barbara.

For the former first daughters, the idea for their new book was inspired by their own parenting journeys and their family bond.

Working Together as Sisters 

The new children’s book follows Jenna and Barbara’s New York Times bestsellers Sisters First and Love Comes First.

“We love having any excuse to work together, because it means we have opportunity to spend time together,” says Barbara.

A new book comes with a new book tour, or what Barbara calls the “slumber party” and “sister sister trip” that they always want to take. Their nationwide book tour kicks off on March 25, 2025, until March 30, 2025. “That means we just get to spend 24 hours a day with each other,” says Barbara. “Our lives are busy, so we’re always looking for a reason to be able to do that.”

Barbara will also be co-hosting Today with Jenna & Friends on March 24, 2025, and March 25, 2025.

“It’s been fun working on the planning of it and thinking about what stories we might be able to cover when I’m on,” says Barbara. “At the same time, I’m happy that it’s not my day job, so I’m excited to do it for two days and then retreat to my private little life.”

Kicking Mom Guilt to the Side

Jenna & Friends, which debuted after the departure of Hoda Kotb, has been a memorable experience for the host.

“It’s such fun energy to have different people in every week,” says Jenna. “I didn’t know Dwyane Wade, and I’m obsessed with him now. He was on The Tonight Show, and he was like, ‘I shouldn’t say this, but I don’t want to leave.’ And I’m like, that’s how I feel; I don’t want him to leave.”

Of course, Jenna misses her former co-host and their time on Today With Hoda & Jenna. “Having Hoda as a partner was super fulfilling, and having that kind of chemistry is unusual,” she says. But she’s looking forward to meeting more new people and all her future co-hosts. She also has one she’s really hoping for.

“We’re in the process, but I would be obsessed and do anything if Oprah would do it at any point,” says Jenna. “So, just say a little prayer for me.”

Meanwhile, Barbara is just as busy as the board chair and cofounder of Global Health Corps, which mobilizes young leaders to tackle the world’s biggest global health challenges.

But they aren’t letting mom guilt get the best of them.

“I just realized that mom guilt is not beneficial and all it does is make you feel bad,” says Jenna, who is mom to Mila, 11, Poppy, 9, and Hal, 5. “I probably felt it at the beginning—honestly, I can’t even remember. But now, when I’m with my kids, I just choose to enjoy it; when I’m not with my kids, also enjoy that.”

Admiring Each Other’s Parenting

While the sisters say they aren’t giving each other parenting advice, they do inspire each other in various ways.

“Barbara’s a super-present mom,” says Jenna. “We both work, so we’re away from our kids during the day and during different hours. I think both of us want presence; we want the time that we are with our kids to be really impactful. I’ve just seen how Barbara has been present with her children, which is really, really inspiring.”

What’s her tip for staying so present with her two kids? “I travel a lot for work, and so when I’m with them, I try to be 100% with them, and have my phone in the other room so that I can be fully with them,” says Barbara, who is mom to daughter Cora, 3, and baby boy Edward, 6 months.

She says she also learned a lot by watching Jenna parent and from her own aunt duties.

“I got to watch Jenna be a mom for so many years before I became a mom,” says Barbara. “And so I both got to see her be a mom, and got to interact with Mila, her oldest, and Poppy, her second oldest daughter, through so many stages of their lives, as babies and then kids, before having my own kids, which just taught me so much.”

Now Barbara is adjusting to being a mom of two which she calls a great transition.

“Luckily, my daughter is crazy about my son and really sees him as her baby, and she she calls him her baby,” shares Barbara. Cora loves helping to put him to bed every night and wake him up in the morning. “It’s really fun that she gets so much joy out of her little baby brother,” she says. “And he laughs and laughs at her, which she just loves. So that’s been really sweet.”

Lessons Passed Down From Their Parents 

Jenna and Barbara are also eager to pass down lessons they learned from their own parents, 43rd President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush.

“Our mom taught us the love of nature, and her mom, Jenna, who my sister is named after, taught that to her,” says Barbara, who is making it a point to share that with her toddler.

Another big lesson is independence. Jenna is understanding the importance of that even more so now that her oldest daughter is going into middle school.

“I’m not going to be part of all of her memories, and nor should I,” she says. “I want to give my kids as much independence as possible, obviously, in a safe way, so that when they become older, they can kind of stand on their own two feet, and they’re not looking to me for every answer. They’ll have that within themselves. My parents were very much that way. They gave us a lot of independence. And I think that’s one thing Barbara and I both admire and want to emulate.”

Back to their children’s book, they are both also passing down a strong reading foundation. Their grandma and former First Lady Barbara Bush pioneered a literacy movement across the country, after all.

“When we were kids, our parents read to us before going to bed, so it’s really part of our daily and nightly ritual,” says Barbara. “My daughter expects it before bed. We get under the covers and cuddle and read, and I remember that same feeling when we were little, of being cuddled up next to our parents—safe and warm, and cozy reading.”