There’s no need to throw separate birthday parties for twins, according to Jenna Bush Hager. But Jenna & Friends guest host Michelle Buteau isn’t so sure.
The topic of holding joint celebrations came up while Buteau discussed her kids, Hazel and Otis, who are turning six in January.
“You know, I’m trying to do the best I can. I can’t have separate birthday parties yet,” Buteau explained. “So it’s one party together.”
“No, no, no,” Jenna said. Why make more work for yourself?
“Did you guys share?” Buteau asked, referring to Jenna and her twin sister, Barbara.
“We didn’t have two separate birthday parties. What are you talking about?” a horrified Jenna replied. “You’re going to do two separate birthday parties at some point?”
“I think at some point, I have to,” Buteau said, to which Jenna assured her that she does not.
Individual cakes are not necessary either, if you ask Jenna.
“Wow!” Buteau said, looking visibly relieved.
Later in the show, Buteau compared raising twins to “running a daycare.”
“It feels like you’re on an episode of ‘Amazing Race’ with no prize at the end,” she joked to Jenna. “Do you know what I mean?”
Buteau, a comedian, shares Hazel and Otis with her husband, photographer Gijs van der Most. The couple, who have been married since 2010, welcomed their twins with the help of a surrogate in 2019.
“I think he’s too laid-back. He thinks I’m a helicopter parent,” Buteau wrote in an 2020 essay for The New York Times.
While Buteau was born in New Jersey, van der Most hails from the Netherlands.