Hoda Kotb is not letting her little girl grow up too fast. The 58-year-old news anchor revealed on the Monday, June 12 episode of TODAY with Hoda & Jenna that her 6-year-old daughter Haley recently asked if she could wear a crop top, which she denied. “So Haley wants to wear a midriff. She asked me about a midriff,” Hoda vented to Jenna Bush Hager, 41.“She was walking down the street and she goes, ‘Hi mom,’ and she pulled [her shirt] up halfway. I go, ‘What are you doing?’ She’s like, ‘Nothing,’ and she’s giggling out of her mind,” she continued.
“It’s weird! You want your kids to feel good in your own skin — but isn’t that a weird thing?” Hoda continued, seemingly perplexed by the entire situation. “I said, ‘No. No, we’re not doing that.’”
Hoda then expressed guilt for seemingly pulling a bait-and-switch on her eldest child. “I often wrestle with making your kid in charge or in control and then saying no. We always do the, ‘Do you want blueberries or raspberries? Do you want to wear pink or red? You pick! See, you can choose! See you have some control!’” she explained. “Then I wonder, what are we doing? Even though that’s what parenting is now, sometimes you wonder if you have one choice … sometimes it has gotta be no, don’t you think?”
Hoda adopted Haley when she was a baby in 2017 with her ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman. They expanded their family in 2019 when they adopted another baby girl, Hope.
Hope and Hoda made headlines earlier this year when Hoda was absent from TODAY for two weeks following a “family health matter” that involved Hope’s admittance to the ICU. Hoda gave viewers an update on Hope’s well-being on the March 6 episode of TODAY with Hoda & Jenna. “The other day … she had in her hand two little confetti stars, and she said, ‘I got two, Mom. One for me and one for you,’” she recalled. “And I thought to myself, ‘Even when she’s not feeling good, she’s still giving everything away.'” Hoda also confirmed Hope had been released from the hospital.
Hoda recently sat down with Bethenny Frankel on her Just B podcast and expressed her concerns about being an older mom. “I look at my mom, who’s 86, and I think to myself, ‘OK, what’s the difference here between me and her? Thirty [years]. OK, that’s kind of good,” she explained. “So I add 30 to Haley and I add 30 to Hope. And I think to myself, won’t that be spectacular? I can do that.” She also said it would be “amazing” to be there for her kids’ possible milestones, such as marriage and motherhood.
The Oklahoma native also reflected on the moment she found out she would be adopting. “I took a yellow pad out, and I wrote, ’11:55. This is the moment everything changes,’ I knew it,” she sweetly recalled. “And I took a deep breath and dialed the number [to connect with the adoption agency], and I said, ‘Ashley?’ and she said two words to me. She said, ‘She’s here.'”
“I don’t know what birth feels like, and I bet it was amazing,” she continued, “but this was really close.” Hoda added, “I remember that feeling like it was yesterday.”