Jenna Bush Hager is opening up about the woman who shaped her into the mother she is today: her “otherworldly calm” mom, former First Lady Laura Bush.

In a heartfelt Mother’s Day segment on Today, Jenna, 41, reflected on her childhood with Laura and the quiet, powerful ways her mom guided her and twin sister Barbara over the years. Accompanied by sweet throwback photos of the Bush family, Jenna used the moment to honor not the former First Lady of the United States, but simply the woman she knows as “our mom, our mama.”

Jenna and Barbara were born on November 25, 1981, and raised in Texas by Laura and George W. Bush, long before their father became president in 2000. Looking back, Jenna joked that she and her sister “tested” their mother’s patience constantly—but Laura rarely cracked.

“My mom is otherworldly calm, and, believe me, we tested it,” Jenna said with a laugh.

That calmness, she explained, shaped the tone of their home. Before her years in the White House, Laura worked as a public school teacher and librarian, and her love of books became one of the greatest gifts she passed on to her daughters.

“She is an avid reader and introduced Barbara and me to the wonderful feeling of falling in love with books,” Jenna shared. One black-and-white photo in the segment showed Laura curled up on the couch reading, while another captured her reading to the twins as toddlers. A family picture showed the girls with both parents, all immersed in books—a visual snapshot of the values that quietly defined their upbringing.

Literature wasn’t the only lasting legacy. Jenna also described her mom as “fiercely loyal and very protective,” someone who always stood by her daughters but didn’t need to raise her voice to get a point across.

“[My mom] has this incredible way of just gently guiding,” Jenna told co-anchors Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb after the montage aired. Instead of lecturing or ordering them around, Laura would nudge.

“She didn’t use her voice as forcefully, maybe, as I do,” Jenna admitted. “She would say, ‘Oh, there’s this great place that you should volunteer.’ She wouldn’t even say that. 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.”

That subtle approach, Jenna suggested, taught her and Barbara about service, empathy, and responsibility without ever making those lessons feel like chores.

Now a mother of three herself—Mila, 10, Poppy, 7, and Hal, 3—Jenna says one of her greatest joys is watching her parents step into grandparent mode.

“It’s so fun to watch my mom and dad with my little ones,” she said. As a grandmother, Laura leans even more into her gentle, easygoing side. “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.”

In addition to Jenna’s three children, Laura is also grandma to Barbara’s daughter Cora, who was born in 2021. The family is now full of little ones, and Jenna clearly cherishes seeing her mom experience this new season of life.

The tribute to Laura came just days after Jenna shared one of her mom’s more “gross” but hilarious comments from years past—an example of how Laura’s understated composure can also be paired with a surprisingly cheeky sense of humor.

While discussing Gwyneth Paltrow’s candid interview on the Call Her Daddy podcast, Jenna and Hoda got onto the topic of “kissing and telling.” Jenna said she doesn’t kiss and tell about her long marriage to Henry Hager, whom she wed in 2008 at her family’s Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford, Texas.

A wedding photo flashed on-screen, prompting Jenna to joke: “That was the night it all happened, y’all! Just kidding.”

She then told the story of how Laura mortified her and Barbara the morning of the wedding. The twins had spent the previous night together, and Laura came into their room singing, “You’re getting married! Let’s go change the sheets!”

Barbara immediately protested: “Eww, gross, Mom! This isn’t The Other Boleyn Girl!” Jenna said, laughing as she recalled the moment. She added that what her mother said next was even more outrageous—but she chose not to repeat it on-air.

The anecdote showed a different side of Laura Bush: still calm, still composed, but with a mischievous streak that only family gets to see.

Through all the jokes and memories, Jenna’s admiration for her mother was unmistakable. She credited Laura not just for nurturing her love of reading and modeling quiet strength, but for giving her an example of how to parent with both boundaries and gentleness.

“Thank you, Mom. I love you so much,” Jenna said at the end of the segment—a simple closing line for a tribute that made clear just how deeply Laura’s influence runs through her life, her career, and the way she now raises her own children.