Jenna Bush Hager's Daughter, 11, Looks Just Like Her Gorgeous Mom In Rare New Photo
Jenna Bush Hager and her 11-year-old daughter, Poppy, are basically twins, and it's absolutely adorable to see. The talk show host posted a rare picture celebrating Poppy for her 11th birthday with the sweetest caption: "Happiest birthday (a day late!) to my darling Poppy. Just like the flower: vibrant and effervescent. And the funniest in any room. You are loved." Poppy is the second of Jenna Bush Hager's three kids with her husband, Henry Hager, and in the picture, wearing a white dress and posing in a garden, she looked just like her mom.
Bush Hager chose the name "Poppy," after watching an interviewee talk about her grandfather, George H.W. Bush, in a documentary. In it, "He said that when he was at school, he went to this boarding school, and everybody was anti-Semitic, there was a whole crowd of people being terrible to him," Bush Hager explained. But her grandfather, who's nickname was Poppy, had stepped in and protected him. "I looked at Henry [Hager] and I said, 'That's her name,'" she told co-host Hoda Kotb during a November 2024 episode of "Today." "We want the type of kid who stands up for others, who makes sure people feel included and loved."
Jenna has shared glimpses of Poppy's personality and dreams
Over the years, Jenna Bush Hager has had some emotional moments about time lost with her kids. She's also spoken about how this has impacted Poppy's outlook on life. In 2022, she revealed that her girls had very different dreams from hers when she was their age. "My biggest dream was to be a mom. That's all I wanted. And my girls, I said to Henry, they have these other dreams," she told co-host Hoda Kotb (via People). "Poppy's like 'I'm going to be an actor,'" Bush Hager recalled, noting that neither of her daughters mentioned wanting to be a mother.
In another March 2023 segment, she spoke about how Poppy felt about being the younger daughter. She recalled Poppy waking up at night while she watched "Enola Holmes" with her older daughter and feeling betrayed. "Poppy ran in and said, 'Why would you do this? Why does she get to watch?'" (via YouTube). Bush Hager revealed that she tried to remedy the situation by letting Poppy watch with them, but big sister Mila, who hadn't been allowed to watch PG-13 movies at Poppy's age, protested.
Bush Hager's final solution was to turn the TV off and put both girls to bed. "I went in and laid with Poppy because I remember feeling that way. Left out. [...] I said, 'I know that hurt your feelings,'" she recalled. She ended the segment with a question that resonated with all moms: "I wonder, how do moms do it all? How do they give everyone the attention they need?"