Jenna Bush Hager’s UNEXPECTED Parenting Rule That Keeps Her 12-Year-Old Daughter Away From PHONES And SOCIAL MEDIA Sparks DEBATE
J
enna Bush Hager hasn’t gotten her 12-year-old daughter, Mila, a cell phone yet, and there’s a valid reason why. The TODAY co-anchor opened up on her podcast, Open Book with Jenna, about what has influenced her parenting decision and why it’s an ongoing conversation with her children.
Why Jenna Bush Hager doesn’t let her 12-year-old daughter have a phone or social media
Jenna Bush Hager on TODAY on Tuesday, January 30, 2024. Photo: Nathan Congleton/NBC
Bush Hager and her husband, Henry Hager, first became parents in April 2013 when they welcomed their first child together, daughter Mila. And when Bush Hager returned to TODAY after her maternity leave, she was given an eye-opening assignment.
“The first story I did after having her, after my maternity leave, was a doctor, who was from Harvard, who was studying anecdotal evidence of how kids felt when parents picked up their phones,” Bush Hager told Christina Najjar, a.k.a. Tinx, during a May 2025 episode of her podcast, Open Book with Jenna.
“The words that they were using were things like, ‘I’m not interesting. I’m not enough,’” Bush Hager continued. “And this was before a real rush of young people having electronics, it was based on what parents were conveying via just always staring down [at their phones].”
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Bush Hager and Tinx also discussed their love of reading — and how easy it is to become hooked to your phone, especially with new technologies like AI and the nature of the world we live in today. “I’m not some angel who only reads. I’m addicted to my phone, too,” Tinx said. “I feel my attention span shrinking. And it’s going to be a choice that each individual has to make. And also people make for their families in terms of how we’re going to navigate this next era.”
“And people are navigating,” Bush Hager replied, adding that The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt has “done so much amazing work” into researching how social media and smartphones have impacted American kids today.
“I have a 12-year-old, she does not have a phone and she won’t for a bit. And she definitely won’t have social media,” Bush Hager continued. “And, you know, it also is a conversation. I wasn’t raised by super strict parents, I’m not super strict. Like, I believe in conversation, I believe in her having the voice.”
Bush Hager added that while she’s open to having conversations with her children about these topics, especially as technology continues to advance and more research becomes available, she explained why enforcing this rule is especially important. “I feel like some parents are scared to say ‘no’ to their children, and we’ve given her a boundary that she’s known about for a long time,” she said. “Kids want boundaries … and the other thing that’s easy to say is like, ‘I’m doing this because I love your brain. Like I care about how you grow up.’”
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Along with Mila, Bush Hager is also a mom to her 9-year-old daughter Poppy and 5-year-old son Hal. The TODAY host, who’s also run her Read With Jenna book club since 2019, often shares sweet stories about her three children, including how they all got dressed up in costumes and danced in the rain for her husband’s birthday. Turns out, the whole family also enjoys a little prank here and there, especially on April Fools’ Day.
And while Bush Hager cried “little tears” when Poppy and Mila both went off to summer camp by themselves and got a bit emotional when Hal moved out of his crib, the mom of three shared on TODAY in May 2024 that she realized what’s special about these kinds of milestones. “I realized that I’m not going to be in all of my kids’ memories. And that actually is a great thing,” she said. “They’re starting to become really independent, and they don’t need me as much. And I’m like, ‘OK, I did something right.’”
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