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Hoda Kotb Had a Really "Hard" Experience Moving as a Kid: "I Was Horrified"
The TODAY anchor is readying her daughters, Haley and Hope, for a big move — prompting her to reflect on her own childhood.
Hoda Kotb is getting ready to move her daughters, Haley Joy and Hope Catherine, to be closer to a new school, but this transition is minor compared to the move their mom faced when she was a kid. In a new episode of her podcast, the TODAY co-Host opened up about getting her girls ready to go, as well as the impact moving had on her own childhood.
Hoda Kotb opens up about moving as a kid — and now moving with her kids
"I was thinking about moving. My kids and I are going to move somewhere to a new school, and I was reflecting on my life and how many times we moved when I was a kid," Kotb shared during a recent conversation on her Making Space podcast, per TODAY.com. "And I remember once my parents moved us to Nigeria, I was in fourth grade, I was horrified. Like, we get to this place, the language was different, everybody seemed different, and it was hard. I moved again in sixth grade."
"It’s so funny because the stories I tell now as an adult, are the stories of how I endured or what I did to cope. Yet at the same time, as I’m preparing my kids, I feel like I’m trying to protect them from things that they should probably be into," she continued.
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Hoda Kotb's daughters are growing up
This isn't the first time Kotb considered easing up on her protective instincts to let her girls have their own experiences. She recalled watching her daughter show bravery at a birthday party, telling her TODAY co-Hosts, "We were at a birthday party and it was at a real, grown-up gymnastics thing...Hope, my youngest, was clawing to get up on the vault and when you stand on the vault, you leap and pitch yourself out into this big vat of those big, squishy bricks...Hope grabs on, latches on, pulls herself up on that vault, is standing up — she's scared to be high up — I watch her fling her body into that big whole vat of those squishy things, and I started weeping."
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She continued, "It struck me in that moment, as I was watching both my girls — I was watching Haley rock climb — I want them to do their thing...it just reminded me: Kids can do so many things without us...I was forced out of the way, that was the only way it worked. And now she felt brave ... and I could have inadvertently taken it away by just trying to be helpful. Stop helping, everybody!"
