People in the public eye are no strangers to criticism, but that doesn’t mean it’s right especially when the comments are directed at a person’s appearance.
After discussing Ariana Grande’s recent video where she addressed comments made about her body, Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager recalled times they were hurt by unsolicited comments.
“I’ll never forget this,” the co-host of Today with Hoda and Jenna began. “I got a letter addressed to me in somebody’s handwriting to my house…”
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Kotb, 58, who is a mother to Hayley Joy, 6, and Hope Catherine, 3, shared with her co-host and viewers the time someone wrote her a letter about what it meant to become a first-time mother in her 50s.
The letter read, “How dare you bring a child into this world at your age. Don’t you know what you’re doing to that child?”
“It took my breath away because that actually was my ouch. I was scared. Is this something that is smart for me to do? Am I helping, or am I ultimately going to be harming?”
Kotb became a mother at the age of 52 when she adopted Hayley in 2017. The Today co-host was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007 and as a result was unable to conceive.
The handwritten letter was different than any criticism she may have received online.
“I thought about that. And when I read it, I thought, ‘Someone took a pen and sat at a table and put it, wrote that down, and got a stamp and mailed it,’ went through all that trouble to say that to me.”
“This took care and time and research. And so when I was feeling terrible, because I was, my dad passed when I was in college. And I remember thinking, we have our parents for a period of time. I know the foundation he left.”
And while Kotb questioned her decision, ultimately she said she knew she made the right one.
“I know it was worth every second of that time,” she said. “But it’s real, it can hit you in a place that you’re the most vulnerable.”
Whatever happened to not saying anything if you don’t have anything nice to say?
There is no reason you can’t become a parent after a certain age. There is no age limit.
Please share to show your support for all parents, no matter their age.
