Bush twins share their ‘Wonderful’ life
Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush grew up in the public eye: Their father is former President George W. Bush. In their new memoir, Sisters First (Grand Central), they reveal the close bond they share, remember their headline-making days as college students and talk about their lives today. Jenna is a correspondent for NBC’s Today show and mother to two little girls, and Barbara is CEO of Global Health Corps. The twins, 35, spoke with USA TODAY’s Jocelyn McClurg in New York during a #BookmarkThis author chat on Facebook. Here are highlights:
Q I love the subtitle of your book, ‘Stories From Our Wild and Wonderful Life.’ It’s from a Mary Oliver poem, ‘The Summer Day.’
Jenna: We have heard this before, “Oh, those wild Bush twins.” Which frankly, we kind of like! We’ll take it now as mid-30-year-olds and mother of two.
Q: What should be off-limits when it comes to kids in the White House and media scrutiny, especially with young Barron Trump?
Barbara: We feel very protective over Barron, just as we did with the Obama girls. When their dad was elected president, we took time off work to show them and Mrs. Obama around the White House. They were the age we had been when our grandfather (George H.W. Bush) had become president. We had so much fun when we were little — we have a huge family and tons of cousins and we would go and play in the White House, and it just was magical to us to use our imaginations in such a spectacular place. So to get to show the Obama daughters our hiding places … we loved this banister we could slide down. To show that to them was really special. We’re extremely protective of them, that they actually get to have a childhood, and the same goes for Barron Trump.
Q: You write that you hope to dispel some of the stereotypes about yourselves with this book.
Jenna: People will say, “Oh, you’re the loud one, right?” to me, and she’s (Barbara) the quiet one. Or you’re the extrovert and she’s the introvert. … Barbara started a global health non-profit, she’s traveled the world, her commute is to Rwanda. She is extremely independent, far more independent than I am. I’m more of a homebody. She writes about going to Yale while our Dad was president, where she didn’t know a soul. I chose to stay with friends I’d known my entire life. … To share our own voices (in the book) has been quite empowering.
Barbara: With our parents in the position they have been, it’s very easy to stereotype them, and that’s something that comes with the job. And yet we can’t help but also want to show the other sides of those that we love. ... People will come up to us and jokingly, or maybe not, and say, “Oh, your Dad can read?” We talk about this reading contest he does every year and he did every year when he was in the White House. He reads well more than a book a week, almost two books a week.
Q: Has either of you considered continuing the Bush dynasty on the political side?
Barbara: We haven’t. When people used to ask us we’d be pretty defiant, like one-two-three “no.”
Jenna: We’re interested in policy more than traditional American politics...
Barbara: But I think our tune is changing in not considering politics at all, because then we’re part of the problem. A lot of younger people have been turned off by politics because it is so divisive. You have to be willing to be sort of torn apart, and that shouldn’t be the case. It turns great people off from it.